Category Archives: Mystery

278D: Halloween story featuring a new teacher

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I have been searching for this book for so long with no luck.  Unfortunately, I don’t remember the title.

I got it when I was in elementary school in the 1970’s.  It was probably published early to mid 70’s.  I got it through one of the school’s reading program catalogs, so it may be a Scholastic book or another company like that.  My best friend and several other students also purchased it.  It was a Halloween book.  It was about school students who have a young, pretty new teacher come to their school.  Her name was Miss – something.  Maybe Miss Grey.  (I don’t trust my memory that far though.)  The students think there is something odd about her.  She wears a big, wide-brimmed hat.  Of course, she’s suspected of being a witch.

The book was a thin paperback.  The illustrations were pencil drawings in black and white.  That’s about all I’ve got on it.  It was such an unusual story and I’ve never seen the book again.  Wish I knew where my copy got off to.  Probably gave it away when I felt I was too old for children’s stories…  geez…

 

When I search online, the later 80’s series about “Miss Nelson” pops up, but that is not it.

 

Thank you for your time!

273C: Four Corners Young Adult Mystery

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It’s a young adult mystery set in Four Corners area (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona).  A family moves to the Four Corner Area and the teen aged kids get involved with a museum.  The mystery involves oil and artifacts from the area.  The name of the book include the words “Black Gold,” but I’m not sure.  I read the paperback in the later 50s or early 60s.

265E: A girl wants to be an investigative reporter (Solved)

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I’m looking for a book that I would have read no later than 1992. It was almost certainly published in the mid/late 80s or very early 90’s. A light, funny YA (possibly upper-middle grade or tween) book in the vein of Ellen Conford or Paula Danziger, although I don’t believe it was actually by either of them. The version I read was a hardcover, with an illustrated cover that was more cartoonish than realistic. I believe the cover features a girl in a dumpster or garbage can, although it’s possible that was just an episode in the book that I’m conflating with the cover in my memory.

It’s about a girl who wants to be an investigative reporter. She’s working for the school newspaper and begins to uncover some kind of light mystery. (Not a murder or anything like that.) The most specific thing that sticks out in my mind is that the girl and her friend use a lot of lingo and abbreviations in casual conversation, including the shorthand “L.L.A.” to mean “lifelong ambition.”

I believe the title has the girl’s name in it. I feel like the title might have a similar construction to Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great, although it’s obviously not that book. The book is also not Buffalo Brenda by Jill Pinkwater. Anyway, it’s driving me crazy. (I still think about my L.L.A.’s all the time.) Please help me put this to rest!

265B: ’80s or ’90s children’s books about a lottery mystery (Solved)

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This one has been bugging me for years! I read this book in the late ’80s or early ’90s, and I don’t remember much about it other than these two things: (1) there was some sort of mystery with a lottery ticket, and I’m pretty sure what had happened was that the guy selling tickets at the store somehow knew the ticket was a winner and kept it for himself – I want to say the person who was trying to buy it was mentally challenged in some way perhaps, or there was some other reason why he thought the person wouldn’t appreciate the winning ticket; and (2) there’s a scene where the main character (a young girl) is in a body of water and trying to hide from a boat – I’m pretty sure it’s night and that she is floating in an inner tube, and to hide, she ducks her head inside the tube. Oh, and I think the cover was edged in a bright blue. Thanks!

256F: Kids move away, create secret clues (Solved)

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This is a kids book I read in the 1970’s – paperback. It is about two families and one family with two children move away. The second family’s children are very sad. Suddenly, mysterious clues start appearing around and the old family has to decipher the clues. It leads them somewhere, like through the woods, to where the new family had moved to.

254A: Small chapter book on solving mysteries (Solved)

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Okay, this book was maybe from the early- to mid- 90’s, and is a “mystery” book, but wasn’t a series – it had several small chapters, with a story and a picture. Based on the story, and the picture, you had to try and solve the “mystery”. They were simple – one took place in a school classroom where a small windmill made out of popsicle sticks had been broken, and the reader had to figure out if the open window and a strong gust of wind broke it, or if another classmate did. The answers (and specific hints about the clues that helped to solve it) were all in the back.

252D: : Children’s Book series from 1980’s

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I remember a series of children’s mystery books from when I was in 1st grade, which would’ve been 1987-1988. Each book in the series had the same color hard cover. The hard cover was thin and maybe glossy. I remember a series having an orange cover, but there was a different series from the same author or publisher that had a different color hard cover.

From my memory, I seem to remember there being a British-ness to the books. Some took place in a city, others in the country.

I remember liking the books and now that I have children, I’d like to read these books to them.

Thanks!
Augustus

244A: UK Children’s Mystery (Solved)

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Looking for a UK children’s mystery novel published 1960-1970. Plot revolves around policeman stumped by robberies in which getaway vehicle is Morris Minor/Mini that always disappears. Case solved when officer notices (autistic?) boy who copies down all vehicle registration plate numbers while sitting on overpass daily, and from lists finds that ambulance always goes past shortly after robbery. Turns out the Morris is small enough to fit into ambulance. Officer risks job by insisting on searching every ambulance in vicinity after next robbery, and finds getaway car inside ambulance. Black and white sketch illustrations; probably library binding. Originally found in elementary school library in Southern California before 1974.