Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

187F: KIDS FIND SECRET ROOMS AND TREASURE IN OLD HOUSE (Solved)

8 Replies

This is a children’s book that was read to us in class during the mid-1970s, but I felt it was from an earlier era. A family moves to the country, moves into a big, old, dusty, neglected house. There is a solid wood table that they sand and polish with linseed oil. I think there is a scene where the children explore a sealed-off hallway by climbing in through an outdoors upstairs window. I think one of the kids has some chocolate with them and they eat it and they are very thirsty but there is no water, but they quench their thirst by leaning their head out the window and drinking rainwater from a busted downspout. Maybe in the same book they find some old jewelry in a secret compartment behind a medicine cabinet?

187E: KIDS SKIP SCHOOL IN TROPICS FOR A YEAR (Solved)

5 Replies

This is a children’s book that was read to us in class during the mid-1970s, but I felt it was from an earlier era. In it, a brother and sister leave school and join their father and his friend (a man) on a yacht in the tropics for a year. Their father’s friend acts as a tutor. They do their lessons on ship. They swim in the sea and eat breadfruit. I was impressed at how mature and capable and adventurous the kids were.

186F: children’s magic spells book

2 Replies

It might have been either a Scholastic or Weekly Reader children’s book, from either the late ‘60s or early ‘70s; but I might have just stumbled onto it in a random store.
I think it was a small, thin, hardcover book with a primarily medium-blue cover.
I think it had a relatively simple title, like Magic Spells and Potions, or something like that, but I can’t remember.

What I do remember clearly is my favorite spell in the book, which involved going into the forest and finding fern “seeds” with which to acquire the power of invisibility.

186E: Clue Embedded In Turquoise Jewelry

5 Replies

I read this book in maybe 1980-81, it was my favorite ever! It was a young adult book, the main character was a girl going to spend time at her aunt’s? after the death of her father. The aunt had either a hotel or ranch in the desert, somehow horses were involved (either belonging to the aunt, or a neighboring ranch). The girl befriended the daughter of one of the aunts employees (who wasn’t nice to her at first) and would ride horses (there may have been a ranch hand named Jasper?). There was a treasure involved as well……. Her father had given her a turquoise ring or beads (I can’t remember which), and somehow the clue to the treasure was embedded in the jewelry, maybe micro dots ? The girls returned from a ride to find that a burglary had occurred but the jewelry wasn’t taken as she had left it casually on the dresser “hidden in plain sight”. The book was a turquoise colored hardback, and I think it was in the “A-B” section of the childrens library. I have been searching for YEARS to find this, I have a great memory and I can’t believe I can’t remember this book as I read it over and over again! Help!

186D: Life of a Jewish girl in a turn-of-the-century Russian village – NOT “Letters From Rivka!”

4 Replies

Book was on the life of a young Jewish girl (possibly named Rifka) in either the late nineteeth or early twentieth-century Russia. She either took care of, or had a family/pet goat that she tended. I remember descriptions of the family/villagers going to the river to bathe and wash clothes; all the men would go to one area and the women to another so that they would not see each other.
Another part of the book described a non-Jewish peasant friend warning the family of an impending pogrom, and the family boarded themselves up into their house and waited it out, frightened of the noises they heard outside. This is not “Letters From Rivka.” I thought the book might be called “Rivka” but I can’t find any info! I read this in the 1970’s, and it was a softcover book.

 

185D: Creative Siblings on the HomeFront (solved)

7 Replies

children during one of the great World Wars (probably ww2) spend a summer playing together. They put on a play, make the costumes out of cheesecloth. They also gather scrap metal for recycling and buy war stamps. They are living in a very old and large rambling house. One day they discover that the peeling wallpaper in a little used empty room is covering old newspaper clippings so they decide to peel more off to investigate. It turns out the entire room was once papered with newspapers. I have no memory of the title, just these random slice of life events. I don’t think there is much of a plot beyond these.

185B: Fox in a Box hunted by Joe (solved)

6 Replies

My entire family thinks I’m crazy now. Was challenged by one of those ‘name 10 books that have stayed with you’ and could not think of the name of a children’s picture book that we read almost daily when I was growing up.

The book included the rhyme: A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go,
We’ll catch a fox and put him in a box,
And then we’ll let him go!

But I do not think it included the remainder of the rhyme, only that part with the fox in the box. As I recall the cover of the book was green, and about 1/4 to 1/2″ in depth. Maybe 12″ in length, and 10″ in height. Probably published in the 1960s, because it was something I learned to read as a child.

The plot of the book was that Joe wanted to go fox hunting, catch a fox and put him in the box, and then let him go. I believe, he was going to hunt the fox with a bow and arrow, and did shoot the fox in the leg with the arrow. He put the fox in the box, and the fox pleaded with him to remove the arrow and let him go, as Joe promised. But Joe wanted to keep the fox. Ultimately, the fox was let go.

I always thought the book was called Fox in a Box, but cannot find it under that name. It was definitely not a Dr. Seuss book.

Would be awesome if you could find this book.

184A: Boy Believes that Resistance Fighter Dad is Still Alive

1 Reply

I want to buy this book and need help!!!! I do not know the name or the author, but the book The Long Way Home by Margot Benary-Isbert is NOT it.

The story was written for teenagers. It was in my junior high or high school library and I read the book (many times, I enjoyed it very much) around the late 1960’s or early 1970’s.

It took place after WWII.

A young (10?,12?, 14?) boy’s father fought in the war as a member of the French (?) resistance or underground. The father was supposedly killed during the war and his son then placed in an orphanage, residential school, or something similar. The son wants to believe that his father somehow survived. On the basis of a partial name similar to his father’s, which is mentioned in a torn newspaper article about a former French (?) resistance fighter teaching or something for some California (?) university (?). The boy hoped/believed that somehow his father actually survived the war and was living in the United States.

An international adoption program placed French (?) war orphans with adoptive parents in the United States. The boy did all he could at the orphanage/school – good grades, great behavior, etc – to get himself into the adoption program. The boy wanted to search for his father and saw the adoption program as the means to get to the United States.

The young boy is placed with an American couple. The adoptive father (Cal???) was a WWII veteran whose capture by the enemy was prevented by some French (?) civilians. Cal (?) wanted to “give back” by adopting a French (?) child/war orphan. I think the adoptive mother’s name was Sally. The couple is wonderful to the boy and the boy quickly comes to love them both very much. However, the boy cannot drop the hope/belief that his biological father is alive and the boy is compelled to make it to the town/college mentioned in the torn newspaper article.

About a month or so after arriving in the United States and moving in with Cal and Sally (?), the boy runs away to the town/college mentioned in the article. The boy has adventures along the way. He somehow meets up and travels a while with a young want-to-be reporter who sees a prospective human-interest story and perhaps the opportunity for an entry level position as a reporter in the orphan’s quest.

The boy eventually arrives at the place mentioned in the article and learns that the man mentioned in the article is not his father. Sadly, the man confirms that the father was indeed killed during the war. Because of his involvement in the underground, the man had known the boy’s father and is able to tell the boy the circumstances of his father’s death.

The boy is desolate, alone, and afraid – believing he has no options and no one. His biological father is dead and he felt he could not return to Cal and Sally as he had rejected them by running away. The want-to-be reporter who was following the boy contacts his adoptive parents. He explains what happened, and tells them where they can find the boy. Cal travels to the boy and reassures him that they love him and want him. Cal brings the boy home.

I think the title had the words “Long Journey” or “Long Road” in it.