Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)
360S: Truly Scary Stories
I’m looking for a book from my childhood that I can’t remember the name of. It would have been 2000’s most likely 2001-2004. It was a compilation of scary stories that were actually scary. It’s a book for older kids. It is NOT scary stories to tell in the dark, or any of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series.
The cover had a skeleton on it and he was sitting in a rocking chair and it looked like he was maybe in an old attic. I think there were books and candles around him. Maybe a cat or a spider, or both. The cover was a blue - grey color.
Each story had an illustration that went with it in black and white. I remember there being a story about a dog being under a girls bed licking her hand.
I can’t be certain, but the book may have come from a scholastic book fair.
360L: Abandoned Lake House
The book I vaguely remember had something to do with a child or maybe siblings going to spend the summer with an elderly aunt (I think) who was living on a lake where most of the houses were abandoned. It had once been a vibrant summer community ca. 1900 (I think), but was now mostly deserted sans aunt’s household. There may or may not have been a mystery component to it. I think I read it around 4th grade maybe ca. 1977?
360I: Magic Ball (Children’s Sci-Fi)
I read this book as part of a children’s summer reading program at a small branch library next to my Dad’s hardware store in Clarksville, Indiana. The timing was some time between 1965-1968. Every book you read would earn a balloon stamp on a clown bookmark. You only received the stamp after giving a verbal recap of each book to the librarian.
I do not recall the title but I believe there were limited graphics inside the pages. A young boy finds a red ball in a field near his home. He quickly realizes that the ball can respond to his wishes. It can change color and size. Become heavy or light. It can even fly around the room and come to home when he calls.
Late in the book the ball starts to exhibit strange behavior as if it wants to escape. The boy follow the ball into the field where he meets the ball’s true owner: an alien child from a nearby space ship that has landed. The boy gives the ball back to the alien child and is thanked by the alien parent.
This book started my love of science fiction writing and led me to the likes of Wells, Verne, Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke and many others.
359X: Drawings Lead to Time Travel to the Bubonic Plague
Seeking children's/YA book about a girl who time travels/visits memories of a past life? - back to the era of the Black Death/bubonic plague - whenever she starts to draw in different places around town. When she returns to the present, her drawing is finished. Almost certainly published before 2000. Thanks!
359S: Spoiled Girl Takes Out Frustrations on Poor Girl Nicknamed “Safety Pins”
I am trying to find the title and/or author of a paperback book bought at a book fair from the late 80s early 90s.
359A: 90’s Satanic Panic Teen Romance
358E: All About the World War
357Z: ??Jungle Apartment??
This is a children’s chapter book about a family that lives in (I think) NYC in a brownstone. They stop cleaning their house and it turns into a zoo/jungle with a crocodile, monkeys, birds, etc.