Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

143E: Dog saves lost kids at abandoned lake house

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Children’s novel I read in the 90s about two kids who get lost in the woods or “brush”, they find a large abandoned Victorian-looking house beside a lake to take shelter in. They survive off the overgrown garden with rhubarb and raspberries, and fishing from the lake. Their large black shaggy dog, always has hair falling in their eyes (possibly named Sadie?) ends up finding them and returning them to safety.

The book’s cover was yellow/beige, had an oval frame with the shaggy dog’s head extending out like a photograph. Many many thanks for your help!!

 

142C: Scholastic Short Story Contest Winner – Gargoyles come to life! (solved)

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I am looking for a book I bought at school thru the Scholastic Book Club, 1982-1986.
The author was 18 and had written a short story that won a contest. The book I bought was the longer version of that story written after the contest, althou it was only around 120 pages I believe.
The story was about a misfit high school boy who made models of gargoyle-like creatures that were about 3 feet tall and for some reason they came to life. The cover was of the boy in his living room and in the background on the stairs was a set of gargoyle legs coming to get him.
I called Scholastic a few years ago to ask about contest winners as I thought it would be the
easiest way to find a name but they referred me to their Canadian office and they never got back to me.

 

142B: toymaker’s workshop (solved)

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I am looking for a children’s book that I read in primary school, and I’m afraid I have no recollection whatsoever of the title. One of the main characters is a toymaker whose workshop is in a mountain: his character is definitely ambiguous, sometimes actively malevolent. There are children, perhaps siblings, who are other characters who have to deal with him. The toys may come to life?

Other hints: my recollection is that there may be more than one book in the series; the setting is in Austria, or Switzerland or some similar mountainous European locale, and the feeling was definitely of fantasy.

Maybe the strongest marker would be the date of publication. I think it would have been published in the 60s or 70s, certainly no later. I was born in 1965 and was reading it at ages 7-12 or 13.

I have already searched Loganberry Books Solved Mysteries, and not found it; nor has a preliminary search on Google produced anything.
Thank you VERY much for whatever help you can give

 

141Q: Son, father and Stonehenge-like village (solved)

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From what I remember as a ten year-old: the book was for tweens, probably published in the seventies, mid to late. It is a chapter book, contemporary, about a father and son visiting a quiet (English? New England?) village that has a secret. The people in the town are all secretive and distrustful of outsiders, but the boy strikes up a romantic friendship with a girl from the town. The mystery of the town centers around a Stonehenge-type ruin. The climax of the book involves a cyclical resetting of the people of the town and their memories.

 

141E: Teen novel about racial tolerance and baseball from the early to mid-60s

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. I read this memorable book in 1965 when I was ten years old. I was a 5th grader at P.S. 92 in Brooklyn, NY. The story was about the friendship which grew between two teenage boys-one white, one black; teammates on a baseball team in the South (Texas, perhaps?). The black teen lived with his widowed father in a small, meticulously maintained home. Initially, the white teen is wary of his teammate, his attitude shaped by the segregationist attitudes of that time; the novel very movingly describes how mutual mistrust evolves into a soild friendship. I’d be grateful for any help you could give in helping me find this wonderful little book…

140A: Childrens book with an animal (bunny or mouse) that wins the lottery (solved)

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I have been searching for a book that I read in first grade, and I can not find it to save my life.

The book is about a rabbit or possibly a mouse. He works in a grocery store, and wins the lottery. He wastes the money he wins on a car with no engine, a mansion that is too big for him, and a motorcycle so that he can move back and forth through the mansion.

The book ends with the mouse or bunny broke, and returning to work at the grocery store. he buys another lottery ticket on the last page i think.

I was in the first grade in 1988-89, so my memory may not be that great of the details. I think this was a scholastic book- we had book fairs and mailers come home all the time, and that might have been how I ended up with this book.

 I have a first grader that is starting chapter books, and I would love to give him this book. I have very fond memories of reading and laughing at how silly it was. Your help is much appreciated.