Category Archives: MG (grades 2-6)

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.

353O: Dragons Galore

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I’m looking for a kids book about dragons. I don’t remember much, but it was heavily illustrated with all kinds of different types of dragons. It read more like non-fiction, sort of like a simple encyclopedia of various types of dragons. I remember one dragon, in particular, that looked like a snake. I don’t think it had any sort of plot. It was a hardcover and was laid out in a landscape, rather than portrait manner. I was in 4th and 5th grade when I checked it out of the library about 1000 times. That was around 1985-1986.

353N: California Transplant Helps Keep Oranges from Freezing (Solved!)

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Looking for a book from my preteen years. It was about a girl who moves to California. She lives with people who are not her family or maybe distant family or family friends. They run an orange orchard. They have to go out in the cold nights to light smudge pots to keep the fruit from freezing. (And I think at some point, it is a big deal for her to acquire a yellow raincoat that they call a ‘slicker’ in the book.)

353M: Circus Boy Rescues Chinese Girl, Witch Heals Her Bound Feet

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Looking for a children's fantasy novel about a poor boy working at a circus who rescues a Chinese girl with bound feet who's a prisoner in one of the attractions. Takes place in medieval Europe, I think. They're on the run and get rescued by a witch or an old woman who heals the girl's feet by breaking the bones and then teaches her how to walk again. The boy and the girl go on a quest together. There may be a dragon involved. Wasn't a picture book and it had chapters. Read it between 2002 and 2008, but was probably published way earlier. Wish I had more info, thanks!