Category Archives: Status

259E: Young girl and woman who lives alone who can’t see well

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I read this book in 1984 in the fourth grade. Actually my teacher read it to us. I recall a school age girl who visits a woman who lives alone and can’t see well. I’m not sure why she visits, perhaps to help her or get tutoring, but she visits regularly. The girl thinks the woman is blind and lies to her and/or steals, though I think she lies about her own appearance. She learns at the end of the story that the woman wasn’t blind after all and could see her the whole time.

259D: Flowers with Faces

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I remember this book from when I was a kid (I’m 29, but have no idea how old it was). I’m not sure that it’s a book for children, but I do remember that it was illustrated with these beautiful pictures. The characters are flowers (with faces?) and I believe the main character, which may be a dandelion or daisy dies. I remember it as being very dark and sad, and it really stuck with me, but my parents have no memory of it. I’ve been trying to figure out what it was for years. I hope someone can help!

259C: Young adult book of short stories from 80’s

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My father was a middle school teacher, and I believe he brought this book home for me as he did with so many.  I believe this would have been classified YA maybe 5th grade and up?

 

(Stories are not in order, just as I think of them)

 

  1. a girl who went into the ocean and a shark bumped the back of her leg but didn’t bite her.  Narration was that sharks bite some people but not others, based on smell, etc.
  2. a boy in school was always lying to his classmates.  One of his lies was to say his parents belonged to the circus.  One day he disappeared from school and when they asked, they were told his parents came to take him back with them to the circus.
  3. A girl was delivering newspapers in a storm and she got swept into a drainpipe where she was holding on for her life.
  4. Someone was out on a boat on a lake and met a man who turned out to be a ghost (I think).
  5. A boy was skiing down a mountain, not paying attention, and the mountain was talking to him.  Then because he wasn’t paying attention, I think he fell and broke his leg.
  6. A boy found a pair of boots on a street corner, put them on, and the boots made him run without being able to stop.
  7. Someone walked into a café (I think) and began talking to someone else (someone had crutches).  When the older boy got up to leave, the other person noticed that he was missing a leg.

 

*There were definitely black and white illustrations.

 

I have been searching for this book for over 15 years – I surely hope you can help me!

 

259B: Blind girl and a horse

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I am looking for the title of a book I read over and over when I was in primary school. I am 50 this year so around 40 years ago. I got the book from the school library and borrowed it over and over again. The book is about a Blind girl who befriends a wild horse, I don’t remember many other details but the girl has a operation to restore her site, the horse goes wild while she is away and I feel the horse was shot just before she returned, not the happiest story line but this book had a huge impact on me when I was young. Any help would be appreciated.

259A: A shameful delicious lunch (Solved)

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My query is on a book I read in the mid 1960’s, however I don’t know when it was published.  It was a child’s book about a young student (I  believe a girl)  whose parents worked in a restaurant.  Because of that, she “had” to bring lovely, delicious restaurant leftovers for her school lunches.  I vividly remember the descriptions of her covering her desk with a checked cloth, and taking out all this elegant, gourmet food.  The twist was that she was ashamed of her lunches, for being different.  I hope you can help!

258F: The Servant’s Quarters

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I’m looking for a book that I read about 15 years ago that was already well aged at the time I read it, probably from the 70s or 80s. It was on a classroom bookshelf in my elementary school. It’s about a girl who I think moves… from the city to the country with her mother for sure, possibly her father has died. She isn’t too pleased about the move but eventually while exploring their new large country house she discovers the servants passage and a room where it appears an old lady used to live, I think. She also likes to play in the apple cellar, befriends someone at school, and there is a not well-liked older fellow who lives in a dark small house who I think may have lived in their house at one point? I may totally wrong on some of these things because I was young when I read it, but I think I’m right.

 

Thanks!

258D: Brother and sister make a perilous journey

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The book I’m searching for is one I read as a girl. It was an old book then. I was reading it in the early 1950’s.

 

All I recall of it was a story of a brother and sister who had to make a perilous journey by foot, crossing a mountain range somewhere in Europe. They had the help of a kindly woman who sewed coins for the trip into the darts of the sister’s dress. This was so no one would steal their money. After they left her they made it to safety on the other side of the mountains.

 

The book was a standard size hardback, with a faded cover, as I remember it. I borrowed it several times from my aunt, who treasured the book.

 

258B: A little girl and her boarders (Solved)

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I so enjoyed reading this book in grade school (mid to late 1960’s).  It was about a young girl whose mother or grandmother had a large boardinghouse with many renters.  The story’s timeline may have been in the 1940’s or 1950’s (it could have been during WWII).  I don’t think it was based on a true story.

 

There was either an elderly gentleman or an elderly woman who the little girl was fond of.  Naturally, she interacted with many of the boarders.  I remember thinking that this house was quite large with many rooms and as a child, I wished my house was that big.  I believed she had a friend that she walked to school with.  Her mother may have been a WWII widow, as I don’t recall her having a father.

 

I don’t know what it was that drew me into this story as much as it did, if it was the story-line or the many characters or if it was the girl herself, I’m not sure.  What I do know is that fifty years have passed and even now, at age 57, I still think about this little girl and her boarders.  It must have been a wonderful tale for me to still think about it after all these years and more importantly, to ask for help – to help me solve this mystery, as it is.

 

Thank you in advance!