Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

208D: a sort of Little House on the Prairie-light set

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The book I’m looking for was actually a series of Juvenile books I read in the mid 1980’s. I remember 4 or 5 of them. They were a sort of Little House on the Prairie-light. Set in mid western prairie state, but in a town. During or around a big influenza epidemic. The publisher may have been a Christian publishing house. The protagnist was a red head, who was 10-12ish, prone to eavesdropping and misunderstanding. There was a sort of mystery to be solved in each book by the children, that was always just a misunderstanding. One of the books revolved around Valentine’s Day. Can’t for the life of me remember the name or the author, nor can the friends who read them with me at the time.
They were short trade papers, with illustrations on a few pages, but not “illustrated.”
Don’t know if that is even remotely enough helpful information to track them down 🙂

208B: Post-apocalyptic fairy story (Solved)

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My memory is kind of fuzzy, but it was either a children’s or young adult novel I read in the early-to-mid 2000s (I’m leaning closer to somewhere around 2004-2006, give or take a year). The main plot line was that there’s some sort of horrible acidic superstorm approaching the house of these kids. Their power goes out, so the older sibling tries to calm the younger ones by telling them a story about fairies. Their parents aren’t there (I think I remember them being out of the house scavenging for resources. The kids are worried about this, and I think it’s implied they might be dead, but I’m not sure). I remember this part of the story being pretty dark.

After this, the story then shifts to the kid’s story, following the exploits of the fairy and its mischief in a much lighter and happier world, while periodically interjecting dialogue between the siblings. I also remember something about an old lady meeting the fairy. I can’t remember the story very well from here, and I don’t think I finished the book.

If it helps, I remember the cover of the book depicting some storm cloud and a lightning bolt, with the title involving something like “Sprite” or “Fairy.”

207D: Dell Yearling paperback from the 80s

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I am looking for a blue paperback yearling book that was published between 1980 and 1984. The book is about a girl (possibly named Adelaide) who lives with her spinster aunts in a big old house. She and the house girl go up in the attic and find a trunk belonging to the girl’s dead mother and there they unravel the mysteries of the mother’s past. Throughout the book, the main character has memories or possibly fantasies about her mother’s life.

The cover was blue with a picture of two girls in an attic. One girl was caucasian with black hair and a dress. The other girl was African American and and had some type of kerchief in her hair.

206B: World of Lost/Misplaced Things

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These were actually two youth novels I read as a kid, but I only need to find one to find the other, unfortunately I only remember enough detail from both books. They were a series involving a young boy who discovers that there is a world or dimension where all the things you lost wind up. For example, if you just misplaced your keys, it was because they actually wound up in this world, and they would be sent back, but usually ended up in a different place in our world. The world there is filled with lost junk.

I believe the title of the first book was just the name of this place “Other World” or something like it. I remember that at the end of the first book, he needs to send the world a milk carton. When he hears his mother say out loud that she can’t find her keys and she had just left them on the counter, he throws the milk carton at the spot where the keys were and the carton disappears into the other world. In fact, I think the cover of the novel had a floating milk carton with milk spilling out of it as if it were in space or something.

If it helps, in the sequel, he winds up back there, but with his annoying little brother, who likes carrying things in his pocket. There was something where a giant clock of some sort runs the entire dimension and without a stuffed bird that sits in a cuckoo nest in the clock, the clock won’t run and the world is doomed. In the end, he remembers that his little brother said the stuffed bird felt the same in his pocket as his favorite golf ball/putt putt ball, so the protagonist saves the day by putting a golf ball in the cuckoo’s nest.

205C: Teens Abandoned at Camp

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I am looking for a book from the 1980s. It was a chapter book about a group of children who were sent to a summer camp, but discover while there that their parents were planning to abandon them there. They were a mix of troubled kids and good kids who had made mistakes or let their parents down recently. My copy was a mass market paperback that was green.