Category Archives: Series

127B: ‘the lemonade bubble’ or ‘yellow soda bubble’ series (Solved!)

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Looking for a children’s book-series (i remember three books – maybe there were more of them), with many illustrations.I read them at school library in South Africa around 1980/1981. The style the peoples were illustrated was sort of like Mick Inkpen-style. And it was always about to boys/young men. And after some thoughts it dawned to me, that the books seem to have described economical or political situations for children, worked into some fantastic stories. Here some of the contents/pictured scenes I remember:

One book was called something like ‘the lemonade bubble’ or ‘yellow soda bubble’, and was about producing lemonade in small scale at first, the production getting bigger and bigger with more profit and getting out of hand in the end, so that the market was drowned with too much yellow lemonade. Something like that. 

The second book contained something about posters showing some face maybe (?), glued to every wall in the town. And in the end of the story they invented a dragon-machine-truck, that ripped the posters off the walls, mixing it with different colours and spraying the paint back on the wall, thus making the town colourful again. It could be about elections or something like that?

Of the third book I remember little, but I know it was about a dispute among the two guys, and how they each set up a frontier/border and patrolling it, spying each other and so on.

The special thing of these books were the illustrations on the inside of the hardcovers – they showed how the main figures (two boys or young men?) ‘came into and left’ the book. In one book they came with an hot-air balloon (getting stuck on a church steeple)and left the book again with some sort of flying steps (taking one step from the bottom and adding it to the top – and this way climbing higher and away), in the next book they arrived with these steps and left through some underground tunnel, chasing a yellow butterfly. In the next book coming through the tunnels and leaving by some other way . . . and so on.

 

125E: Sorcerers, dragons & dogs (Solved)

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I read these books during the late 90s/early 00s. I believe the title may have had something to do with the antagonist, the Sorcerer, but I’m not entirely sure. My school had the first book and one sequel, I don’t know if there were more.

The book was about a boy who I think had something that the evil Sorcerer wanted. The boy befriends a small dragon who I think was called Rose, she was pink in colour but was always sent into a rage and spit fire whenever someone referred to her as pink. The dragon also had a companion, a stone dog who I think was called Flint.

The Sorcerer has a minion, I can’t remember the name, it was described (and was illustrated in the books) as a large beast with matted black fur, and curved horns like a ram. He is able to kidnap the boy at some point and take him back to the cave that the Sorcerer lives in. The Sorcerer himself owned a magic book that refreshed itself every few days, he was waiting for a specific spell to come up that he needed the boy for. At some point in the story the boy manages to escape and take the book with him. He stays in the forest for a few nights, using spells in the book to shield himself, he writes some of the spells down on normal paper because they last longer than the magical book, but they still fade; he is unable to memorize them either.

 

123E: Boy living with count and his daughter after father imprisioned (Solved)

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In the 1970s I read 2 or 3 books from a series which were old books from my parents.

The main character was a boy (maybe Peter) whose father was part of a resistance movement. The father was captured, tried as a traitor and sent to jail.

The boy (who appeared to have no living mother) was taken to live with a senior person (count perhaps) who was important in the government or people the rebellion was against.

This “count” was seen by the boy as dark and evil and the grand house seemed like a prison to the boy.

The boy although very unhappy eventually made friends with the “count’s” very young daughter, went horse-riding, played etc. But he tried to get messages to the resistance movement and maybe even tried to get away. The “Count” found out, and there was some discussion about holding the father as a “hostage” to the boys good behavior or the boy to the father’s behavior.

The “Count” and the father were both really trying to work towards the same end, but the father was doing it by rebellion, and the “Count” from inside the system.

The boy ends up being treated well by the Count – but I never got to the end of the series (I think I read book 1 and 3 maybe).

I think one of the adult’s names was Sebastian and I got the feeling that it all happened in middle Europe, black forests and castles.

I would love to find out the author and the name of at least one of the books.

 

109D: Art aka King Arthur

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This is the 1st in a series (a trilogy) read in school around 1992-1993 (7th grade). The plot is a boy and a girl in the 20th century finding a teen, Art, and discovering that he is actually King Arthur. Art gets hurt toward the end of the book and they have to go Avalon to save him from the bad guy.

109C: Mysteries About Haunted/Spooky Cases

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Thanks in advance for any guidance you can offer here. For years I have been trying to remember the name of the chapter books I borrowed from my local library in the mid to late 80’s.  I remember loving them tremendously, but now only give you the vaguest details. Which are…

A boy who for some reason I want to call Harry or Peter or William and an older man who I want to call Professor go around solving haunted/spooky cases. My mind wants to call it Harry And the Haunted Knight, but no amount of googling brings that up.  The main thing I remember, and I know this is reaching, is that they in every book there would be these glorious descriptions of the two of them slurping down these most delicious sounding gooey desserts. It was one of the authors main identifying characteristics, those wonderful descriptions of the two of them eating the most amazing desserts.

I realize that this is probably a long shot, but I did want to try you and see if it called anything to mind. I would love to read them to my boy when he’s old enough.

Your site is truly wonderful.

108E: Young Adult Mystery Takes Place in Scotland

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I believe I read this book in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s.  I also believe it was part of a series with the two main characters.  This may have been the first or second book in the series.  I do not think subsequent books took place in Scotland.  The two main characters were a guy and girl (possibly a couple, I do not think they were related) in their late teens or early 20’s.  There may have been a romantic aspect of them getting together.  I remember the guy being self-assured and flirty and the girl being more sensible.  In the particular book I’m remembering, they travel to Scotland and stay in a castle near a loch to solve a mystery.

102T: Greek Mythology

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Series of books I read in 1980. Must have yellow binding w/black letters. One book was completely Greek Mythology. The other books in the set are different topics and are fuzzy to me. Your closest solution is M129, wrong color/binding. The Young Folks Shelf Books also wrong color binding.