Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

262E: Welsh Coal Mine Ponies (Solved)

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I loved this chapter book in the 1970s.  It took place during a much earlier era.   A coal mine in, I believe, Wales is closing which employs most of the people in the town.  The town children are afraid of what will happen to the ponies that work in the mine pulling the coal carts. They want to “retire” the ponies to a field.  The parents are worried about losing their jobs and don’t have the money to help the children save the ponies.  I believe the children make an appeal to the wealthy owner of the mine, who is sympathetic.  There may also be descriptions of the miners being sick, and of a canary dying from gas in the mine.  I remember this book having the same kind of feel to it as “The Wheel on the School.”  Thanks everyone for your help!

260F: Girl raised by witches is really a fairy (Solved)

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There was a book that I always took out of my elementary school library between 1975 and 1978.  Although I do not have the title, what I recall is as follows:

The book is about witches and fairies.  The little witch in the story never felt right with the other witches, they were mean. I think she used to see the fairies and wish she was one of them.  The middle gets fuzzy but towards the end she discovers that when she was a baby she was caught in the witches web and that’s how she came to be with them.  But she was really a fairy and was returned to them.

I know this is not much but at 47 years old I cannot put this story out of my mind.  I have always been an avid reader and hope to find this book.  It will haunt me otherwise.

260D: Brothers trapped by tides meet a dragon

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I am trying to remember the title of a children’s book i read in the early 1990s. It was a short paperback chapter book. The story was about 2 brothers (they may or may not have been truly biological brothers) and they were opposite and did not get along. One was very athletic and the other was nerdy and more brainy. They go on a summer vacation together (grudgingly) to the East coast. I want to say the Maritimes? Somewhere with very high tides. Anyway they go exploring some caves together, but time passes faster than they expected, the tide rises and they are trapped in this cave together. But they find some magical way into a fantasy world. And there are dragons and magic. And the nerdy brother is the one who is more clever and able in this world than the jock brother. And there is a part where i think they have a riddle contest with a Dragon and the nerdy brother outsmarts the dragon. The brothers become friends in the end.

259G: Daughter of Maine Lobsterman (Solved)

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This is an old (perhaps 1950’s?) children’s chapter book about a young girl living in a small Maine coastal lobster town, where her father is a lobsterman. I don’t specifically remember her mother being in the story… The main story line is that someone is stealing lobsters from traps in the town and somehow her father becomes a suspect – I think related in some way to a red sash from one of her dresses that he has in his pocket, that people think is the mask that the thieves were using. Somehow, his innocence is confirmed and I think she has something to do with it….

There are other pieces to the story as well, about her daily life, and I remember a part where she talks about listening to the rain pattering on the tin roof of their house.

Unfortunately, I do not remember any other specifics. Any help would be sincerely appreciated!

259E: Young girl and woman who lives alone who can’t see well

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I read this book in 1984 in the fourth grade. Actually my teacher read it to us. I recall a school age girl who visits a woman who lives alone and can’t see well. I’m not sure why she visits, perhaps to help her or get tutoring, but she visits regularly. The girl thinks the woman is blind and lies to her and/or steals, though I think she lies about her own appearance. She learns at the end of the story that the woman wasn’t blind after all and could see her the whole time.

259C: Young adult book of short stories from 80’s

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My father was a middle school teacher, and I believe he brought this book home for me as he did with so many.  I believe this would have been classified YA maybe 5th grade and up?

 

(Stories are not in order, just as I think of them)

 

  1. a girl who went into the ocean and a shark bumped the back of her leg but didn’t bite her.  Narration was that sharks bite some people but not others, based on smell, etc.
  2. a boy in school was always lying to his classmates.  One of his lies was to say his parents belonged to the circus.  One day he disappeared from school and when they asked, they were told his parents came to take him back with them to the circus.
  3. A girl was delivering newspapers in a storm and she got swept into a drainpipe where she was holding on for her life.
  4. Someone was out on a boat on a lake and met a man who turned out to be a ghost (I think).
  5. A boy was skiing down a mountain, not paying attention, and the mountain was talking to him.  Then because he wasn’t paying attention, I think he fell and broke his leg.
  6. A boy found a pair of boots on a street corner, put them on, and the boots made him run without being able to stop.
  7. Someone walked into a café (I think) and began talking to someone else (someone had crutches).  When the older boy got up to leave, the other person noticed that he was missing a leg.

 

*There were definitely black and white illustrations.

 

I have been searching for this book for over 15 years – I surely hope you can help me!

 

259B: Blind girl and a horse

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I am looking for the title of a book I read over and over when I was in primary school. I am 50 this year so around 40 years ago. I got the book from the school library and borrowed it over and over again. The book is about a Blind girl who befriends a wild horse, I don’t remember many other details but the girl has a operation to restore her site, the horse goes wild while she is away and I feel the horse was shot just before she returned, not the happiest story line but this book had a huge impact on me when I was young. Any help would be appreciated.

258D: Brother and sister make a perilous journey

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The book I’m searching for is one I read as a girl. It was an old book then. I was reading it in the early 1950’s.

 

All I recall of it was a story of a brother and sister who had to make a perilous journey by foot, crossing a mountain range somewhere in Europe. They had the help of a kindly woman who sewed coins for the trip into the darts of the sister’s dress. This was so no one would steal their money. After they left her they made it to safety on the other side of the mountains.

 

The book was a standard size hardback, with a faded cover, as I remember it. I borrowed it several times from my aunt, who treasured the book.

 

257C: The adventures of Dot (Solved)

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This was a children’s story about Dot, a little girl, around 7 years old, and her day-to-day life and small adventures with her friends. I believe the book was the first in a series, for example, the next book might have been titled, “Dot Goes to the Beach”. The books themselves were hardcover – I don’t believe they were ever released in paperback – and the stories were written for 7 year old girls. I can only guess that they were written in the 1950s or 1960s.

 

One story had Dot and her friends going on a field trip. Dot’s mother had given her a box that advertised salt water taffy. When the children arrived at their destination, the box of taffy everyone now eagerly anticipated, turned out to be a box that had *once* held taffy, but now had Dot’s lunch (or something else mundane).