Looking for a 70s/80s picture book about boy/girl twins who receive a magic sports bag from their uncle. Every day the bag contains equipment for a new sport — I remember fishing and perhaps roller skating.
We’re looking for a children’s or young adult chapter book wherein a wounded white soldier recovering at a slave owner’s home falls in love with a black slave there and teaches her to read. She then shares that knowledge with her daughter, and when caught she faces brutal punishment.
It’s possible I’m confounding two children’s books. I remember reading this/these book(s) as a child in the 1980s. Book(s) featured a young boy who has trouble falling asleep. He wakes up or is still awake late at night, fearful of wild animals coming into his house. He is not believed by his parents. After dark he encounters wild animals, including a lion or tiger coming down the stairs of his home. He is afraid but is not harmed. I also remember (possibly from the same book or perhaps from another book) that the boy is at school, daydreaming. He looks out the classroom window and is scolded by the teacher. He sees an alligator/crocodile, who is beckoning him to go on an adventure to return the alligator/crocodile to his home. The boy travels with the alligator/crocodile through water. The alligator/crocodile says goodbye, offering the boy his tooth as a parting gift. The alligator/crocodile has a single tear on his cheek as he says goodbye. The book(s) have a dreamy, whimsical feel and I remember being frightened of the wild animals and enjoying the illustrations.
I’m looking for a book I read sometime between 2005-2011. The cover was mostly blue and had a sword hilt on it I think. In the book a kid from our world somehow goes to another world. In this other world, the people fight with swords that the blade only actually exists if you believe? Little hazy on that part. I remember a scene where the main character loses a foot race to a younger kid from this other world. The people train using the swords by swinging them at giant boulders. The sword blade can heal any wound when pressed against it unless it’s caused by that type of sword. Might have had Christian themes. When in our world the main character was attacked by some sort of invisible monster that can’t be seen. Somebody saved him using one of the magic swords.
I am looking for a paperback collection of “true” ghost stories, published probably in the 1970s. Cover: Ghost bride on stairs. One story has a title like “The Scent of Lilac”.
Sometime in 1960-62 I took an English History course in college. We were assigned reading for extra credit. I read a book about the Battle of Trafalgar, which I remember as riveting. I specifically remember a fulsome description of life aboard the battleship, including descriptions of how food was prepared, how surgery was performed during the battle, and other daily concerns of the sailors. I do not think this was a biography of Lord Nelson, rather a blow by blow of the lead-up to the Battle and the Battle itself. Clearly it had to have been written prior to 1960. I would really like to find this book.
There was very little text and mostly illustrations. The story involved a girl whose lover(?) is taken away by a witch. She goes to the witch’s lair and there are many birdcages with owls in them. Her lover(?) is also being kept in a birdcage when she saves him.
The pictures had a very dark colour scheme with a gothic/art nouveau art style, similar to Kay Nielsen but darker. I remember being fascinated with this book as a child as the content was so dark compared to my other books. I’ve been trying to locate it for years but cannot remember even slightly what the title was.
If it helps, I suspect the author was European given the content, so the original book was probably published in Finnish, Danish or German.
I remember a fiction book from when I was a kid about a boy who was raised in India by his father. But when his father died (and there was a part where I remember the boy going out on the river to dump his father’s cremated ashes), he ends up having to move to the US to live with his grandmother (I think). He was probably middle school aged? He struggles a bit to fit in, but then when his grandmother’s house ends up being threatened by a new highway going through, the boy convinces several of his classmates to come over to the house and they start a hunger strike that ultimately results in the house being saved. Some of those details may be a little shaky, but that’s more or less what I remember. Thanks for any help!
I recall cartoon illustrations. Similar to The Magic Schoolbus type of illustrations maybe? … In the boys’ memory, the book was 101 Dalmations. We did have that push-button book, too; but that wasn’t it. Robert was so sure it was the Cruella DeVille button, that he looked it up (https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/101_Dalmatians_(Golden_Sound_Story)), but her button is a car engine. And I remember enough to recall it wasn’t a Disney movie/book. It was … I think a little White girl. On a farm? The villain was a White woman, too, similar to Cruella DeVille.
When I was young in the 70s I read a book about a young woman who married a man in maybe Alaska. Their children die of diphtheria. I thought it was called For the Love of Ann or maybe For the Love of Mike?