Category Archives: Solved

377V: Russle the Raccoon (Solved!)

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I am looking for:Children’s Book 

Title:Russle or Russell

Year read: 1972-1977 I was 4 years old and this was a favorite of mine. 

About:A raccoon named Russle (it is spelled incorrectly because raccoons don’t know how to spell). Russle doesn’t like to go out at night and look for food with his gang, she likes to sleep. Emma Jean the leader of the raccoons doesn’t like this. Emma Jean carries rocks in her purse. During the day on Russle’s adventures, he meets a little boy. He gives him a banana. They play together and eventually he moves in with his new friend. Emma Jean and the gang do come to visit. Russle always gives Emma Jean two bananas. Description of cover:Hardback. Russle is on the cover. I believe he is standing in flowi. The background is purple and black. 


This was a favorite book and I cannot find it ANYWHERE. 

377T: My Aunt is a Witch? (Solved!)

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I read this book in the mid-1970s.  It was set in about the witch trial time.  A young boy had an single aunt (she would be called a free-spirit now).  Because she did not conform the the norms of the day, she was accused of being a witch.  He tried to save her from being a witch by plunging a needle repeatedly into his leg.  She ran away rather than be tried as a witch.  He went after her and she was claimed to have kidnapped him.  At the end of the book, the aunt was in jail and two brothers, both ship captains, offered to marry her.  One brother wanted her to finish the jail term and then he would marry her.  He claimed his sterling reputation would make her acceptable to the community.  The other brother said he would break her out of jail that night and sail away with her, never to return to the colonies.  She took the second brothers’ offer.
It has been at least 50 years since I read the book.  I seem to remember the title contained the witch, silver or wake but I could be completely wrong about the title.  I checked the book out from a bookmobile in Oklahoma.

377J: Looking for a teen funny book from 70’s (Solved!)

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I read a book in the early 70’s. It was about a teen boy and his misadventures in a small town. It had a cover with a kids driving and old blue jalopy In the book. In One of the stories he gets a commercial propeller and puts it on a car to make a go faster. It flies loose and goes flying through the town, destroying things. I think the book had a white hardback cover, and the picture of the boy in the car was like light blue drawing I think it may have been a Scholastic book. But it was about this young early teen boys misadventures. And I recall the propeller wrecking havoc story. The book may have been from the 60s. But I read it in the early 70s. It may have been one of my older siblings book. And it probably was from the Scholastic catalog.

376Y: The whodunit on the estate (Solved!)

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I have been trying to remember the name of a book I likely read in the early 1990s but could have been published much earlier than that. Every time I describe it to someone they guess it’s The Westing Game, but it is not.
A girl is invited to her aunt’s house for a visit. The aunt is married to a prominent and rich man (possibly a journalist? He is someone the girl is aware of and admires) who is throwing a party at his estate for a large number of famous friends. Once the guests are assembled it’s revealed via clues that the man has knowledge of something unsavory from each of their pasts (including his wife’s) and is blackmailing them.
That night the man is murdered and the book becomes an Agatha Christie style whodunit, knowing that the murderer must be one of the people in the house. The girl is able to learn about all of the guests and eventually solves the murder – the killer is a loyal housekeeper who doesn’t want the aunt’s secret to get out.
My son is now approaching the age I was when I read the book (probably 10 or 11?) and I’d love to find it for him since he enjoys mysteries but I cannot for the life of me remember the title, nor track it down with any kind of “books similar to the Westing Game” style searches.

376T: 12 Days of Christmas parody (Solved!)

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I came across this website while trying to search for this book from my childhood. I do not know the title of this book. All I can remember is that it is a 12 days of Christmas parody. That there were monsters in this book. It had to been published before 1996. It was a colored illustration book.

The world works in mysterious ways. A line from the book came to me today and when I searched it, an article from The New York Times archive popped up. Published in 1977, Joel Schicks The Present was there. This was the book I’ve been searching 10 years for.

376S: Pilot hidden in attic (Solved!)

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So I read this book in 2020 or 2021 and I believe it was written roughly around that time. The author is a woman with a unique name (which for the love of cheese, I cannot recall) and her bio said she lives on an island off the coast of England (could be Channel Islands) or possibly coast of Australia! Oh man, I’ve really forgotten!

The story is written first person from the perspective of a girl as she grows up, and then also as she is an adult. I forget how her father died, but I think he was on a boat at sea and never returned. The girl is sent to live in a house on the coast with a woman guardian, who is not her mom or stepmom, and their relationship is curt. There is a creepy male family friend who drives up every other week or so to check in on them and I think gives them money.
At some point, a German pilot crashes his plane into the ocean, swims to shore, and comes to their house. They help him and hide him in their attic. As I recall, he speaks little English. The little girl develops a loving sweet relationship with him, and he teaches her to draw. The girl’s guardian woman falls for him, and the little girl feels jealous of their relationship.  At some point later in the book, the creepy man is coming over and the girl is upset with her guardian, and intentionally leaves the door to the attic open where the creepy man will hear them talking. The creepy man discovers them and basically tells the man to walk into the ocean, knowing he will not survive the freezing water.
In the meantime, in the present, the now  adult little girl is planning the day she will die and leaving a note for her neighbor letting him know. She is visited by a teen girl who is sitting on her fence (and I think she is the daughter of the creepy man and her guardian). I know it’s complicated!
The grown little girl does end her life as she planned, but it’s not graphic or violent.
I cannot remember any names, but I think the time is WW2 because of the German pilot.
Thank you so much for any ideas! I’ve searched so many searches and authors and come up empty.

376Q: In Search of the Amulet (Solved!)

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I’m hoping you can find my book….I really don’t want you to be stumped 🙂
(I think) the title is ‘In search of the amulet’
(I think) the author’s first name is Susan, and that she is English.
The book is likely to have been written in the ’70s or’80s, but I’m not certain.
Its a non-fiction story of her solo travels across Afghanistan and Turkmenistan (and other places) in an attempt to find the origins and meaning of the common fringed triangle symbol (amulet).

376N: Magical Silversmith (Solved!)

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Looking for 1950’s or 60’s fantasy young adult books about a magical silver smith in Massachusetts who can time travel and shape shift and enables a young boy to share his adventures.  Author might be Lawson or Dawson.  I have tried the Library of Congress listings of books without success.  The books were available in the San Marino, CA public library into the 1970s or 1980s.

Additional story elements:

The silversmith was an adult during the American revolution. Story elements involve turning into various animals and birds, pirates and participation in the revolution

376M: New Girl Teen Love Triangle (Solved!)

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The book revolved around three high school kids in a small town, two boys and a girl. I think the girl had recently moved to town, possibly from down south somewhere, and had befriended the two boys. One of the boys I remember being more awkward and emotional than the other. They have a spot in the woods that they meet up. Both boys fall for the girl, and eventually the girl falls for the not-awkward boy. Awkward boy catches other boy and girl either dancing or kissing in the school gym, and reacts badly. Girl goes to the special spot in the woods and finds that awkward-boy has hung himself. Possibly an 80’s Avon Camelot book.

375Z: Scholastic Book Club, 1977-81, children’s book, thriller, white paperback with cover art, kids at night, carnival with Ferris wheel with swinging lights (Solved!)

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Have little to go on. Believe purchased via Scholastic Book Club or at Scholastic Book Fair between 1977 and 1981; a short-read, 1–2” children’s novel; think it’s published by Scholastic; it might be a supernatural or science fiction thriller; white paperback with cover art, possibly with kids and a Ferris wheel; main characters are kids, with the climactic event at a carnival with a Ferris wheel with swinging lights?