Category Archives: Solved

353Y: Dad bakes tire cake that is secretly pretty (Solved!)

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I’m looking for a children’s book that I read in the early 2000’s. The plot is that there’s a baking competition at this boy’s elementary school. All of his friend’s moms sign up to bake, but when he goes to ask his mom she can’t for whatever reason (I think she may have had work? I vaguely remember him lying in bed trying to fall asleep and hearing her type, but that might be wrong). His dad volunteers, and the kid is kind of embarrassed but he agrees. He wakes up the next morning and his dad has the cake under a cake server lid so he can’t see it. At some point he shows him the cake, and it basically looks like a large black tire. The kid is stressed that it’s not as pretty as the other cakes. The parents (all moms except the one dad) line up in a row and the teacher goes around tasting the cakes. When the teacher gets to the dad, he asks her for the knife to cut it. The kid becomes even more embarrassed because he thinks the dad is trying to be chivalrous. The dad takes the knife and instead of cutting the cake, he starts carving it. All of these beautiful rainbow flowers and designs start to appear and everyone is stunned and suitably impressed. I think they end up winning first place and there’s a happy ending.

353V: Orphan Cathy Runs Away to Scotland and Learns True Name (Solved!)

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I’m looking for a British children’s book, likely from the late 1940s, about an orphan girl who lost her parents in the Blitz. She’s found wandering London with a torn tag that says only “Cat” so the orphanage calls her Cathy. Several years later she has a sudden recollection that makes her feel that her family is in Scotland and runs away to find them. Meets some siblings who help her and have a kind uncle named Alastair. Lo and behold, the kids end up being her cousins, her name isn’t Cathy, it’s Catriona(?) and she is reunited with the family who have been searching for her all these years. Might be the first in a series, a la the Boxcar Children. Thank you!

353R: Paintings With Riddles (Solved!)

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Seeking an illustrated children's book (probably paintings) with a slew of riddles on one page and an accompanying painting containing the answers to those riddles. Likely published late 70s or 80s, no later. Somewhere in the book is a picture of a Raven and some thread. The last illustration features a horse. Not Animalia, but possibly inspired by it. Book is on the larger side, dimensionally. Thank you.

353N: California Transplant Helps Keep Oranges from Freezing (Solved!)

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Looking for a book from my preteen years. It was about a girl who moves to California. She lives with people who are not her family or maybe distant family or family friends. They run an orange orchard. They have to go out in the cold nights to light smudge pots to keep the fruit from freezing. (And I think at some point, it is a big deal for her to acquire a yellow raincoat that they call a ‘slicker’ in the book.)

353D: The Adventures of Thistle the Raccoon (Solved!)

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So my book is a children’s book.  It was mostly pictures but also some text and a little story to go along with the photos.  It is from the 70s/80s as the 80s were when I was taking the book out of the library.  It was about a raccoon named Thistle.  I am pretty sure of the name but it followed the story and pictures of a racoon with that name.  I hope that is enough to go on as I haven’t found it anywhere.  They were actual photographs and not drawings.  And I’m pretty sure there was a picture of Thistle on the cover.

353C: 1970s, Younger Female Teen Figure Skater, Moves with Family to Rural Part of State, Practices on Perfect Pond next to Burned-Down Mill (Solved!)

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I read this novel in the 1970s when I was in early-mid elementary school. The main character and her family live in a state in the upper Midwest; she’s wicked into competitive figure skating and has been training/competing for years. Because of her dad’s job (he might be a college professor), they move from a city to a more rural part of the state where there are no indoor skating facilities and no training. She checks out the lake where the other kids skate, but finds it unsatisfactory (perhaps the surface is always bumpy). She finds a perfect pond! Ice is always clear of snow and smooth. But the locals shun it. She’s happy to train there alone. Eventually, she learns the reason why the spot is shunned by locals. It was a tragedy. The family that owned the mill was holding a party there for their daughter (about the same age as the novel’s main character), there was a fire, and the girl was killed.

352Z: Jazz Musicians Guide Boy Falsely Accused of Theft (Solved!)

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I’m looking for a young adult book which I read in the late 80s/early 90s. It’s about a boy, who gets accused of stealing in school, big  jazz elements as there are some jazz musicians who help him (and references to many jazz greats), it’s about righting wrongs without having to tattle.
So : a bit more detail. He gets accused. He didn’t do it but knows his wealthy classmate did it.
In the early part of the book, he wears a t-shirt that says “Don’t cheer boys, the poor fellows are dying” which is a quote from John Woodward Phillip and his t-shirt is met with disapproval from the principal.
The kid is in deep trouble as everyone thinks he stole and he has to go see a judge in court, I think.
Finally, and most importantly, there are a number of jazz musicians who provide the protagonist kid with help and guidance.
The book is about jazz, doing the right thing and the reality of being a poor kid whom everyone assumes has stolen whereas the rich kid is not even a suspect cos why would he even need to steal?
It’s really well written but I can’t remember the name or author and would love to read it again.

352Y: Fireside Tales (Solved!)

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The book I am looking for is one my mum used to read as a child. It had a collection of books and poems. She had it in the 1950s but I don’t know when it was published.
She thought it was called Fireside Tales, but this could be wrong as the book cover came off. She remembers there being fairies and elves on the inside cover.
One of the stories was called “Fireside concert”.
Fireside concert is a story about a fireplace and the tools. When the fire is just about to fall asleep, one of the tools says let’s have a concert, so one by one they do a little dance or something fun before they go to sleep.
Another was “Little grey mouse”
She said there was a story about a thread-bare Little mouse. I am not sure if that is the same story or the title of another one.
There are 2 poems she remembers. I don’t know the tites but she remembers the words.
First one:

“Closed are the story books on the shelf

The teddy bear’s fast asleep
The sun has gone from a darkening sky
And stars through the window peep
So off we go to the land of Nod
Down winding lullaby lane
With the night light fairies to accompany us
Till morning comes again
And it that wonderful land of Nod
Are things that bring delight
So hurry along or we’ll be too late

Good night little ones, goodnight”

Second one is about a teapot I only have a small part:
“neat and round and brown am I, merry little fellow, patchwork cosy on my head, red green and yellow. Gather round the table now, draw the curtains tight, fireside is the place for me, on a winter’s night.”
I would be so grateful for any help finding this book as it would mean the world to mum to have a copy. We have been looking for about 40 years now!

352R: Horse novel from the 60s or 70s (Solved!)

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I got a Penguin boxed set for Christmas one year … included an anthology of horse poems, stories and excerpts from novels etc. The Brumby and THIS book that I cannot remember. A young woman in, I think Wales, buys a mountain pony and trains it with the help of a gruff but caring veteran horse owner. The girl is very compassionate about her horse and takes it to a pony club day and gets a ribbon for being so patient with her green mare. There is a ring of sheep rustlers going around and they surprise them in the act one night. The girl and the horse are injured but they survive and the last line of the book is “You will know us by our limps” or something like that.  It’s driving me mental not being able to find it. There is a line in it when she thought her horse had died and it is something with the sentiment that she mourned her horse not just for her loss but for her horse’s life in the world … that she loved living so much and now she wasn’t … I would love to read it again and really want to get that quote correctly.

I’ve posted on some book finder blogs and no luck so far … unfortunately my parents’ house flooded in 2008 and they had to throw out a bunch of stuff from the basement … up until then this boxed set would have been there.  Sigh.  And original editions of The Black Stallion, a large picture book on the creation of the Misty of Chincoteague series etc. etc.  I try not to think about that too much.

352Q: Looking for book of literature/novel, only recall the cover (Solved!)

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I'm old now, just turned into my 76th year on earth and for the life of me I cannot find this one book that I think is a novel that I wanted to read, but it slipped away in memory as to it's title or even it's plot.

This is a description of the cover as I recall it and I’m hoping someone might remember the cover and thereby know the title. The cover was striking:

Cover background was dark, maybe black.
The central image was a realistic whitish semi-see-through delicate garment, maybe a woman’s blouse, or a girl child’s article of clothing or?

I’m going to guess that I first saw the book perhaps 15 years ago+/-, or a bit less than that. It seems it was prominent amongst readers of novels at the time. But I have googled the cover details and come up with nothing.

It is a very striking cover. I will know it when I see it.