Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

153E: Looking for 70s environmentalist novel

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I am trying to find a book I started to read in middle school, but it is hard for me to remember all of the details because I didn’t finish reading it. It was a novel, I think from the 70s, with a strong environmentalist message, “save the trees” etc. It was about high school students (?), and had intermittent poems throughout the text, including one that went something like “acid rain, like a single tear drop, rolls down the flower”.
It appeared old and worn to me when I was in middle school in 1998, a small hardcover book with blue binding. I think the latest date of publication would be 1980, as it was about environmentalism and the messages were similar to the messages of the 1970s. Sorry I don’t have more details, but let me know if this jogs anyone’s memory.

Thank you!

 

152D: Children’s mystery: missing books, secret room

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The book I’m looking for is an English, children’s mystery novel set in an big rambling house, attached to a village bookshop. The main character is a boy whose family has moved there because an aged relative has recently died and left the house and the business to the boy’s father. Either the father, or the boy, is called Kit. The boy has at least one sibling. It was the first book that I’d ever read that mentioned Evensong (what? – my family is Australian and Methodist!). The house is quite close to the village green.
Anyway, the central mystery is that when the family arrives at the house/shop in the new village (I think they’ve come from London), all of the books that should be in stock in the shop – as well as all the books from the house’s library – are missing. Eventually, the boy (with other children, maybe?) discovers a hidden or secret room, with overgrown vegetation hiding the outside windows and a papered-over doorway in the front hall. Obviously, this hidden room contains all the missing books. It’s possible that A Clockwork Orange is mentioned amongst the recovered books.
I read it when I was about eleven (in the early eighties), and the copy I had was a small, second-hand, hardcover edition, with the edges of the pages stained red (I don’t remember the cover’s colour or whether it had a dust-jacket). My father was in the army, so every time we moved, mum would make me rationalize my book collection – this novel was one of the sacrifices! I would love to know a title and author, as it’s been bugging me, since I tried to describe it to a friend, over a week ago.

 

152C: MYSTERIOUS FRIEND (solved)

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Let me start off by saying the book I am looking for is not ‘The Secret Garden’ by Burnett, and is not ‘Secret Friend’ by Marilyn Sachs.  I’ve also considered but tossed out ‘Mystery Back of the Mountain’by Mary C Jane, although I think that’s the closest I ever got to a eureka moment but I don’t recall a male companion in the story.

Read the book in 4th grade, 1982, it was about 1″ in thickness,  it was a hard cover, fabric, pale sage green. It didn’t seem new.
I recall a “W” on the spine of the book. In the author’s name perhaps?
I do not recall pictures, but that doesn’t mean there were none, just that this was a children’s novel, not a little kid’s book.
The title included words like Secret, Friend, Mysterious Friend, Garden ?…
The main character was a young girl, 10-12 years old possibly.
The book has the dark English feel to it similar to The Secret Garden. I recall grassy hills, gardens, whispers, not modern.
The biggest memory in the book is the main girl character meeting a mysterious girl named Olivia (which makes finding this on Google impossible due to the pig of the same name) and becoming friends with her.
This is why I don’t think that it’s Mystery Back of the Moutain, because I don’t recall a male character tagging along in their friendship but I might be wrong.
My other last ditch guess is “THE HOUSE OF SECRETS” aka “The Secret Passage” by Nina Bawden.  Is there an OLIVIA in that book? This book however, also contains a male child that I don’t recall.
Would love to find this so I can pass it on to my daughter 🙂

 

151C: Anthology of Fairy Tales

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Hi, I had this book probably in the late 90’s. It was a paperback book of fairy tales, but not traditional ones, “different” ones, and I’m pretty sure it was an anthology. I’ve thought of quite a few of the stories and plots but can’t remember the name of the book or editor. Anyways, The borders of the cover were red and there was some kind of blue and green forest type scene on the front I think? The colors looked like a drawing, not a real photo or anything. One of the stories is about a prince crossing an ocean and his boat begins to sink. A mermaid kisses him all over his face and he can breath underwater. He goes to live with her for a while but also wants to go back and tell his parents he’s ok, he does, meets a girl on land and marries her, and when he crosses the ocean again the sea princess drowns him I think. Another one is about a girl getting ready to be married and she meets some kind of half man half stag in a forest and he puts a braid of his hair around her finger. When she goes back home and goes to get married, the ring won’t go on her finger and the stag man shows up to take her back to the forest. The third story I remember is just about a girl with blue hair (maybe a mermaid?) who’s missing and her brothers are coming to a town one by one to search for her. They all end up getting indentured to different people and she shows up in town (or something) riding a tiger. And last, a princess stitches her dog into a tapestry she’s creating and stitches herself in too. Wanted to escape the castle or marriage or something. I found a similar answered question about a story like my very last one, but I know this one was in a book with lots of other stories, not by itself.

 

151B: Childrens book about baking bread

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I’m looking for a children s book where a group of children (I believe all siblings) go into town and pick up ingredients to make a loaf of bread except they don’t measure and when they bake the bread in the oven it over flows the oven, and eventually over takes the house coming out of the windows. I believe they end up cutting of pieces and either giving it or selling it to their neighbors in the small town, or village.

 

150J: jokes/quotes to escape from a shell, selecting future selves (solved)

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Looking for a children’s book, brother and sister, a series of magical challenges.  One requires that they escape from a conch shell with increasingly important quotes.  They start with jokes/riddles and end up needing powerful quotes for the final sections of the shell. 

Also there is a scene where the sister (Nora maybe? Ellie?) is faced with a series of doors, each in a set of two where she chooses one based on her reflection.  At first she chooses more sophisticated versions, with fewer of her hated freckles, but ends up very uptight and opts to return and take another path. 

 

149A: Three animals living in a tree

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This is a story of, I believe, three animals.
There is a crow, and two others whom I cannot remember. These three animals live in a tree that they share.  They are trying to survive, and much of the story surrounds their attempts to Cook good meals.  They may make stone soup.  The book has chapters and it has some illustrations.  It focuses on animals staying warm and staying well fed.  For example, They eat biscuits.  I would LOVE to know the title of this book.  Help?
My Mom gave me the book in the 3rd grade.

147C: Kids’ Island Nation

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I was very happy to find your website. I am currently stumped by a book I read as a child (lets say, during the 70s). Generally speaking, the plot is that a group of kids/teenagers take over an island in between Canada and US and create a nation.  The book opens (I think …) with the sister arguing with her brother who is in a band (I think …) and she has red hair (I think … ).  I believe (I think …) the ending does not work out that well for the newly formed nation / the kids, and that there is some “father knows best” sentiment, ultimately.  In any case the bit I am most confident about is the nation / island / US-Canada waters. 

Thank you for any help!