Category Archives: Status

122B: Children’s book, Friends on Countryside Trip

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This is what I remember – a group of friends went on a trip to the countryside and stayed in a house together. One of the rooms was described in great detail with lovely furniture, all child sized. It was the room I craved the rest of my childhood. There was a tree house, and an orchard. They met up with gypsies, and I think a fairie ring was involved somewhere. They were all friends from the same neighborhood. Do not recall if any of them were related. I read this book before 1968, it was not new.

121J: Boy’s journey across the red cliffs to the beach (solved)

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This stumper is a children’s picture book that I think was published either in the late 80’s or the early 90’s.  I live in Australia, and I’m afraid I don’t know if it was an Australian book or not.  If it is I suspect it will make it even more difficult to solve!
I originally thought the title was “Lucy’s Beach”, but I’m obviously wrong about the name because I have not been able to find any record of it.  I am pretty sure it’s a girl’s name followed by the word “beach”.  I don’t know who the author is.
The story began with the main character, a young boy, in the kitchen at his house with his family.  The weather is good, and he comes to the decision that today he will cross the red cliffs to the beach.  His family listens to his announcement very seriously.  You got the sense that it was an important thing the boy was doing, and that it’s the first time since some kind of significant event that he was returning.
He leaves the house and crosses the cliffs.  He navigates the narrow ledges of the red cliffs and finally arrives at the beach.  He searches in the beach until he finds a stone covered by the sand, not red like the cliffs, but flat, smooth and polished.  It has a name engraved in the top of it.
Finding the stone makes him remember playing at the beach before with his younger sister, and the boy remembers his parents telling him to watch his sister in the water to keep her safe.  I think he got distracted playing his own games, and his little sister ended up drowning.  The stone is a memorial marker for her.  He lifts up the stone and finds a compartment with some kind of plant or flower seeds.  He removes the seeds from the box and blows them into the wind, and they rise up above the towering red cliffs.
I think that’s pretty much the end of the story.  Pretty sad for kid’s picture book.  I really hope you can help me solve the mystery of this stumper!  I’m certainly looking forward to hearing from you.

121I: Pre-Teen Romance Anthology (Solved)

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I read this book sometime between 6th and 8th grades, so between 1976 and 1979. It was not great literature but catered very much to pubescent and pre-pubescent girls. It was a mass-market paperback anthology of short stories, and I think they all dealt with romance and/or the characters’ first kisses. There might have been some that were just about the trials and tribulations of being that age, but if so, I don’t recall specifics. I do remember one of the stories mentioning chocolate pudding. In another -or maybe the same story- the protagonist went on her first date (possibly a school dance?), and when she and the boy walked home, he kissed her, and she said his lips tasted sweet like Coca-Cola.

 

121H: Daughter’s Favorite Children’s Book Wanted

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Book is approximately 30 years old.  Title and author unknown.
Part of the book went like this “knee pads, shin guards, ankle bracers, that’s what’s worn by roller racers” and another part talked about “Bethesda Fountain” which is part of Central Park in NY.  That’s all we can remember.  Any help in finding this book would be GREAT.  Our daughter is having our first Grandchild in November and she fondly remembers this book and would like to have it for her child. 

 

121G: Angel Cake

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I got this book from the picture-book section of the library in the 1990s, I think. It was quite new then. It is about someone who wants to make an angel cake as good as her mother’s (grandmother’s?) but she doesn’t know the secret ingredient. Some angels come and make the cake for her, I think. Maybe they eat it too? I am not too clear on the plot, but I thought the illustrations were BEAUTIFUL! The angels are obviously portraits of real people. Obviously, someone else loved this book too because it disappeared, and I could never find it again. The author’s name was at the end of the alphabet- I only remember that because of where the book was on the shelves.

 

121F: Upside Down Boy

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This was a book in the Dr Seuss/PD Eastman format (i.e. about that size, not very long, line drawings with only a few colors) about a boy who starts noticing footprints on his ceiling and it turns out there is a boy who lives upside down. They make friends, but they can only go some places together. I remember a scene at a dock, for instance, where one was on top and the other was underneath. It has to have been published by 1964 or so.