I’m looking for a series about a boy who I think solved mysteries after going to live with his grandparents or something. In one I remember him following some tiny grey spiders that led him to a solution, and I think there was a scene in that one or another where he went through a clock.
Published in the late 60’s/early 70s and set on the coast somewhere in England, I think in Elizabethan times. The flying machine (a Leonardo da Vinci type invention) only works properly at the end of the book, when it is used to escape from some people of horseback – it flies over the cliffs and the children escape (maybe to France)
Looking for a book for my Dad, possibly from 1950s/1960s. He only recalls an illustration of children dredging a river in a boat (I think) and the bucket of the dredging boat either had gold ingots painted on it and/or was full of gold too.
An inventor who lives in a technologically simple medieval land working on various inventions including crude gliders. After a young boy who has taken the glider out is mysteriously killed the man sets off find the culprit. across the sea only to find that the true culprits are a type of dragon.
I am looking for a book I read back in the early 70s – the book could be from the 60s. It was about a young woman who takes a job as a “nanny” on a cattle farm East of San Francisco, for two young girls who lost their parents. An old woman with a broken leg lives in the house, there are two Aunts to the young girls living there, one is named “Beryl.” There are two hired men who work the cattle farm. There is something suspicious about the old woman and the hired men, as if they are plotting to take over the farm. There is a “maid” who is not very good at her job and this “nanny” title role character ends up taking over the cooking duties as well. She ends up falling in love with one of the hired men and the old woman and the other hired man are arrested for crimes, and the “nanny” and the “good” hired man take over the farm and raise the two young girls at the end. The plot takes place in the Summer as the book always talked about how hot it was. I remember the old woman, along with the two young girls, originally picked the “nanny” up in San Francisco and they ate a meal on Fisherman’s Wharf before departing for the ling car trip to the farm.
Probably 1950’s or earlier, a book with actual wood for front and back covers, like shingles, about life in a logging camp, with black and white drawings of the narrow-gauge railroad used, etc. I remember it as being from a child’s perspective, who was sent to or visiting the camp, and I seem to remember the cookshack and mealtimes as important.
My mom remembers a book that she read to me as a child and she has wondered what the title was ever since. I was a kid in the 80s, and the book was bought used, so: pre-1989 for sure.
The picture book is about a mother and daughter who hang sheets on a clothesline. Something about smelling the freshly washed sheets and then a storm coming.
Thank you for your help! It would be so cool to locate this for my mom.
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.
A 70’s chapter book. Some children are staying in the Southwest US, or maybe California (I think) on a ranch (?) find an old diary/clue from a doomed explorer saying “gold in here”, meaning in a cave or underground cavern. Turns out be “cold” when the mystery is solved.
Looking to identify a story about a family of dolls that come to life one day each year (NOT on Christmas Eve). The dolls, which belong to a little girl, have their own house – outside of the girl’s house, I believe. The dolls have a maid, and one of their legs is inadvertently glued on backwards by the girl’s dad