Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

365I: Zoologist Couple Explore Animals With Son and Daughter

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My fourth grade teacher (in about 1971) read to our class a book about a zoologist couple and their two children (a boy and a girl) who went on an expedition together as a family to the Amazon jungle to discover animals. I think for a zoo, but maybe not. Each chapter was about a search for a different kind of animal (like an armadillo) describing its nature and its habits. The children had some thrilling adventures – for example, with a jaguar – from which they were rescued by their parents. It was a series because I remember that there was another book where they went to Africa.

365G: Large dinosaur made from egg boxes for a school project in a garage

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Can you please help me track down a book from childhood?
I read it sometime between 1985 and 1988 (I think!) whilst at primary school in the UK. Although it could have been an older book, maybe from the mid-70’s to the early 80’s?
Book title: It was a chapter book, but I can’t recall the name at all, sorry!
Front cover description: I remember it pretty clearly, it is a night time scene (a painted illustration) of the open garage door next to a house, with the large egg box dinosaur (t-rex?) visible inside, and the light spilling out from the garage illuminating the dark exterior driveway. It was quite an evocative image from what I remember.
Description of the book: It is about a group of school friends (a gang or club maybe?) who make a large / life size dinosaur out of egg boxes (a t-rex I think?) for a school project in the garage attached to one of the children’s houses. At some point I think a child from a rival gang / club spies on them, and the rivals (possibly?) end up making their own egg box dinosaur as well (that could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure about them being spied on by a rival though).

364U: Children’s chapter book about a witch

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Details I remember – story is about a boy who goes into the woods and notices an abandoned cottage is now occupied.  He meets a mischievous girl and they form a friendship, then finds out she’s a witch.  At some point I believe she makes the mayor of his town dance around, and they go to a fair where she changes into a cat to accompany him undetected.  At the ends she starts to lose her powers because she starts to care for him (so her nose grows warm, it had always been icy cold), so she leaves.  The very end is the boy all grown up, now the mayor of his town, and he often looks to the forest hoping to see puffs of smoke from the little cottage.

The book had a lots of line drawings similar to Roald Dahl’s but smaller.

364K: Rebecca’s Island (possibly)

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Possible title that I remember is Rebecca’s Island. The plot is as follows:
Mother and young daughter flee an abusive or unhappy marriage. They move to the grandmother’s home I believe. She lives with a lake behind the house and Rebecca paddles a canoe to a small island in the middle of the lake. She makes the island her sort of getaway from the troubles of her home life, paddling to the island on a daily basis. There is an ominous feeling to strange people showing up. Maybe the people are looking to find the mother and daughter for the abusive husband/father.
This was read to my elementary school class maybe in the mid to late 1980s. I got the flu and was not in school to learn how the book ended.

364D: Children’s or YA Science Fiction—Girl goes to Mars, is orphaned during trip (Solved!)

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Read this hardcover from the library in the late 70s. Teenage girl with dead mother, lives with her aunt or grandmother but spends summers with her dad. When girl is near the end of high school her dad announces he has a wonderful opportunity–he has to make a trip to Mars, and he can bring along one person, which will be her. She doesn’t want to go because she had her next few years all planned out and it will be a year or more before they get back. She sulks and yells, but is told she IS going. On board, her poor attitude does not win her any friends or allies among the people she meets. There is a small group of other children and young people on the ship, but she alienates them with her constant complaining and her attitude that people who live on Mars are backward and ignorant. One young man who is returning home to Mars takes on trying to improve her attitude as a personal challenge. When her father dies during the trip, leaving her with no return ticket, the young man’s family unofficially adopts her and helps her adapt to Mars. She enrolls in college there, and generally drops her snobbish, “Everything Earth is superior” viewpoint. I think at the end of the book she is faced with the one-time chance to return to Earth, or to stay with the people she has come to think of as her new family. There was probably a romance between the girl and the boy who “adopts” her. 

I think it was shelved near the Beverly Cleary books, so author’s last name probably began with either C or  a letter close to it.

363U: China Doll Buried in Earth Years Ago (Solved!)

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I am not sure where to start. First of all, I think it was one of those books where a little girl is sent to a relative for the summer. This book would be from the 1980’s at the earliest. Not sure on that. But during the time she is wherever she is – and it IS in the country – she finds out about a doll that’s been lost for a long time. It’s a china doll and I am pretty sure there’s a silver or pewter tea set. Again, not positive, but I think the doll was buried to protect her from something real or imaginary. Somewhere in the story there was a bunny salad bowl with a hole in one of the bunny legs. A map or directions of some kind were wadded up in that hole. I am nearly sure it was a Scholastic book.

I think it was something about the British coming and the little girl was worried about her doll. Then years later this little girl comes along and hears the story and tries to find the doll. It could be as much difference as 80+ years later. The mystery was solved a great many years after the doll was buried. Her cloth body was gone, it was just her china parts. And the bowl with the bunnies decorating it was important to the mystery. It might have been a bunny platter or big plate instead of bowl, but there was a hole in a rabbit’s leg and the map was wadded up in it.

There is no magic or otherworldly parts to this book. I THINK the little girl learns about the doll through either an old letter or a diary she reads. I THINK the doll doesn’t get found for a long time because the girl that buried her years ago moved.  I really wish I could remember more. Its a chapter book and was probably for tweens, so we are looking for a paperback. Although it could have come in a hardback. But its not a picture book.

363Q: St Patrick’s Day Nocturnal Mystery

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I hope that you can help me find a book that one of my former students is looking for! I taught her in 6th-8th grade in 2015-17 I believe. She messaged me on Instagram asking if I could help her figure out the title of a book she had borrowed from my bookshelf back then but I am coming up with no leads. Here is what she remembers: The main character is a girl who wakes up every morning at 3:17 am then goes back to sleep. (Not a time loop). She realizes at the end that it has to do with St. Patrick’s Day, between the time, and there are also St. Patrick’s Day treats and a party. My student thinks there is a paranormal mystery vibe and that the book ends on a cliffhanger. I’m going batty trying to figure this out.

363P: The Doll in the Attic

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In 1958, I used a bookmobile for the first time. I was unfamiliar with the terms of borrowing a book.  I was in the middle of reading a book when I learned I had to return it.  I had not yet finished it. I tried in vain to re-borrow it.  The story was about a young girl who had a doll in her attic. It was not a picture book. The book did not have illustrations.  It was a chaptered book.  It seemed like it was an “old” book at the time. I’m guessing it was written on a 4th or 5th grade reading level.  I do not remember any dollhouses. I think the protagonist, a young girl, was hiding the doll from some danger. The character seemed to be a loner. It was not scary.
I would guess the book was from the 40’s.  Any help?

363N: Girl Witch and the Ferris Wheel (Solved!)

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The book I am looking for must have been published before 1994 at the very latest, and I would think after 1975 although it could be earlier. It’s a children’s chapter book. The main character is a girl child with magic who is learning to be a witch: she lives in a cave with I think her grandmother/s and/or aunts who are old witches, and who are pretty grumpy and uncomfortable. She sneaks out one night and discovers a fairground nearby, and rides on the ferris wheel. (She might make a human friend, which isn’t allowed, and there might be a cat, but I’m not sure about those.) She decides to show her older female relatives that humans can have nice things, and I think she steals some of the ferris wheel cars and puts cushions and warming spells in them so her older female relatives will have nice warm places to sit? I think the cover was illustrated, but not super cartoon-y. I have googled and googled and found nothing.