Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

357C: 70s Purple Dragon (Solved!)

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I was in elementary school in the 70s and I remember reading what I think was an early chapter book series with a boy and his purple dragon/dinosaur/monster. The illustrations in my memory were very minimalist and had a Quentin Blake feel to them but I’ve researched Quentin Blake’s work and don’t see it listed. The dragon/dinosaur/monster was very tall, definitely purple, and walked on two legs. I have a vivid memory of the boy riding on its shoulders. I don’t remember anything about the plot except they seemed somewhat surreal (maybe?) so I don’t know if the creature was real or imaginary. It’s possible the series was school literature only (not mass market published).

356Y: No Silverware

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I don't remember the actual book title but here are some details that I remember: 1) I read it around middle school 2) It has a female protagonist 3) The plot involves a girl or young woman who gets lost at sea and winds up on a mysterious island where time doesn't exist and people don't use silverware. 4) Eventually she is found and returned to her family but the island seems to have disappeared, and she can't remember how to use forks anymore. 5) If I remember correctly it was either a middle grade or young adult book, and was most likely published before 2006.

356L: Middle grade novel — girls fix up old purple house for brother

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This is a short middle-grade novel which I read as a library book in the late ’80s or early ’90s, but may be older. A group of female friends (I think three) fix up and decorate an old house for the older brother of the narrator. He is just getting out of the hospital, either for mental illness or a suicide attempt, and they want to give him a nice place to feel at peace. They paint the walls purple. The brother may be named Joe. When he sees the house (or maybe it’s just a room?), he seems underwhelmed and doesn’t say anything. The main character is very disappointed. Later she goes back to the house and discovers the plants have been watered and the brother has been using it after all. But there’s a sad tinge; maybe the brother has gone back to the hospital or disappeared? One of the girls is Japanese-American and gets romantically involved with one of the older boys who is helping, and the main character is jealous. The illustrations are kind of trippy, showing the girls with very long hair. The cover or illustrations are purple, or possibly the word purple is in the title.

355Z: 1940s or 50s U.S. Chapter Mystery – Kids, Summer, a ‘Chateau’, a Diamond Necklace?

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When I was in about 3rd to 6th grade in the early 1970s, my favorite book in my NJ public school library was a hardcover chapter book about kids on summer vacation, possibly in upstate New York, who get involved in some kind of mystery involving a neighboring house they call the Chateau.  I think a diamond necklace came into it, and I’m pretty sure the children of one family joined forces with a boy from another family (maybe living in the Chateau?) to solve the mystery.  Either Chateau or Diamond Necklace might have been in the title, but I’ve had no luck Googling for it.  It was an old-fashioned story at the time, probably could have been written any time from the late 1930s to the mid 60s.  There were illustrations, but a limited number, and I think they might have been listed by caption after the table of contents. I think it was the first time I had heard of a “Porte cochere”, which I had to look up. I think the binding was red, and may have had an imprint illustration of a country house on the cover — but I could be making that up!

I loved it and probably read it four or five times, but these scraps are all I can remember!  I’d dearly love to find a copy.

355R: Sloth Smuggled Into Apartment Given Bath (Solved!)

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The book I’m looking for was one I read when I was about 10-12, in the late 1970s. It was about a girl who somehow ended up smuggling a sloth into her home (apartment in a city, I think?). The only scene I specifically remember is her giving it a bath and how filthy the tub was at the end of the process. It wasn’t a children’s picture book, that much I do know. And it’s possible it was a short story but I swear I remember it being a chapter book.
I hope you can help, as this has been driving me nuts for years!

355F: Looking for old children’s chapter book about a squirrel (Solved!)

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When I was a child, this would have been sometime between 1990-1995, I borrowed a fiction chapter book twice from my local library that I cannot remember the title of. At the time, the book was old, but I was a kid so it may not have been THAT old. I think it may have been written sometime around the 1950s-70s. It was a story about a boy who takes care of a squirrel. I think that there was a red squirrel on the cover, and the title of the book may have been the name of the squirrel but I’m not certain. I think the book had a bittersweet ending with the squirrel going back to live in the wild. I’ve not been able to find it on a google search so perhaps you can help!

353Z: Children’s Book with a red cover about a flying bunny

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It’s a children’s book for about 3rd or 4th graders.  It’s thin, but it is a chapter book.  The paperback version cover has a little girl on it with short hair and it’s red and yellow.  The girl’s name might be in the title and is possibly Sally.  She finds a bunny (pretty sure it’s a bunny) with wings and there may or may not be a circus. The book was older.  She knows it from the early 1990’s, but it had like a 40’s or 50’s art style with simple line drawings with water colors.  I saw some Golden Books that seemed promising, but she said those were all too young.
I’ve tried the below books and none of them were int.
The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes
Lettice
Pookie
Operation Bunny
Felix and the Flying Suitcase
The Little Rabbit who Wanted Red Wings
My Little Rabbit Tale
Reader Rabbit
Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present

353W: Hoaxes and Frauds Collection for Kids

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I am looking for a book I got in a school book order around 1978-1983, either Scholastic or the other one (Troll, was it?) It was a collection of short accounts of historical hoaxes, like the Piltdown Man, the Cardiff Giant, the War of the Worlds radio broadcast, the New York Sun reports of life on the moon — I think it even had Howard Hughes’s autobiography. I have searched library catalogs and Ebay for “Hoaxes and Frauds,” but I see a book that is far too recent for me to have bought it in elementary school.