Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

196B: P.S. I Hate You (?) (SOLVED)

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I read a young adult fiction book when I was about 13, probably published in the 70s. I was certain it was called PS I Hate You, but can’t find anything on Google with that title. It was about a teen girl, possibly named Marley, who leaves a note on the kitchen table, closing with P.S. I hate you and runs away to her father in the city. While living there, she falls in love with her English teacher when he introduces her to the poem Nothing Gold Can Stay (the same poem used in The Outsiders). She is also insulted by another teacher, who calls her “plain, plump and pimply.”

194F: 1960’s book about accepting disabilities (Solved)

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Looking for a Children’s novel. I probably read it around 1963 or beyond. It was a library book. It was about a young girl helping her friend (possibly named Sarah?) who had a disability (possibly Cerebral Palsy?). I remember the girl helping the disabled girl/Sarah and helped her in school and at play and to generally feel accepted by others.

194E: adventures of the toy soldiers that Emily, Charlotte, and Bramwell Bronte

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In 1968 when I was teaching 4th grade in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a read a book to my students that I think had been recently published and they loved it. I do not remember the title. It was a book about the adventures of the toy soldiers that Emily, Charlotte, and Bramwell Bronte had and wrote about in the imaginary country of Angria. The author took their stories and compiled them into a larger book. I thought maybe the author’s last name was Clark but I cannot find any thing under that name. Finding good books for good students aged 10-12, particularly boys, at that time was difficult and this book they loved.
Thank you for any help you can give me.

194A: Boy falls into magical world, solves puzzles to escape

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My younger brother ordered this book through the Scholastic Book Club or similar program in the late ’90s. He would have been between kindergarten and 2nd grade. The book followed a young boy who, I think, was visiting his uncle or grandfather and fell through, I think, a grandfather clock into another world. The reader had to solve puzzles to help him escape. The puzzles were answered on the next page and you weren’t supposed to turn the page until you solved the puzzle. They would be something like, if 12 o’clock is green and 6 o’clock is red, what color is 3? Some of the puzzles were quite hard and took us a while to solve. What I remember the most is the illustrations. They were vivid, almost life-like. They were dark and the world the boy had fallen into was frightening but the scenery was detailed and stunning, even to me as a young child.

193D: Young adult book with boy hero chasing spies

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Kids fiction. I probably read it in the late 1970s. A boy is worried that he’s discovered a spy or crime situation. One memorable scene: he and his grandmother (I believe he lived with her) are talking about it and he’s afraid their room is bugged so he makes them sit under a blanket to talk. There were simple line drawing illustrations which didn’t concern themselves much with actual human proportions.

193A: Boy and Bear take Journey, Chased by the embodiment of their fears

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I read this book in the mid ’80’s. The book was entitled something like, “The Long Road Home,” or “On the Road Home.” It opened with a boy becoming self aware and he was given the task of going on a journey. He befriends a bear and he and the bear undertake the journey together. The antagonist in the story is an evil that feeds off the fear of the boy. This evil, at one time in the book, took the form of a frog or toad. At the climax of the battle between the boy and this evil, the boy finally fought back his fears, the evil shrunk and was picked up by a large stork and dropped in a lake. The dust jacket was plain white, the title of the book was in the lower right hand corner, next to a pencil drawing of the boy and the bear.

Any help would be great. Thank you!

192D: Book about a Tree house

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I’m looking for a book that I read when I was in first grade (1962). It was about a treehouse. As I recall, the cover and artwork were in shades of green. It was not a large book – I’d say about 8-10 inches tall, maximum. It was a picture book, but the pictures were two-tone – green and black (not elaborate).

The characters lived in a treehouse and as I recall it was a very happy story. The book was old when I read it, so I’m guessing it was published in the 1950’s, or even in the 40’s. I made the mistake of mentioning to my first-grade teacher that I loved the book, and she made me read it out loud to the whole class! Yikes! It didn’t take me very long to read it to the class, so the book must have been only about 20 (or fewer) pages in length.

As I recall, the word treehouse was in the title, but that’s all I remember

192C: little girl travels back in time and meets older ladies in a Victorian style house (Solved)

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1970s or 1980s children’s book or possibly short story, little girl travels back in time and meets older ladies in a Victorian style house and era, they use a warm brick called a “pig” between her blankets to warm her feet on cold nights. The ladies seemed strange to me at the time but I can’t recall why. She might have gone through a secret door in her own house to get to them but I’m confusing it with Coraline and Narnia perhaps!

191H: alligator or crocodile lady who is dressed in women’s clothes

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I’m looking for a children’s fiction book that my father used to read to me in the 1980’s. It’s about an alligator or crocodile lady who is dressed in women’s clothes. She has three parrots/birds and they are always telling her what to do. They say, “Cook spaghetti! Make popcorn!” At the end of the book, her house overflows with popcorn. It would mean the world to my father and I to be able to find this book and read it together again! Thank you!