Category Archives: Solved

333L: Science Fiction dystopia with two AIs and renegades (Solved!)

The book I’m searching for is:

It starts with a common man who just lived his life, but his life has started to fall into pieces. He has two children with his wife, but as requested the children are genetically enhanced and have extremely high IQs. They have left their parents willingly for a special school, and they were even before that not much child-like.

This drove his wife into insanity (or into alcoholism/drugs). On his way home, he finds a body near their apartment and he is afraid of getting convicted for the murder, because he was the first one who is seen by the body.

Later, his wife is executed for the murder, without a trial. She is put to death in a public arena with a laser. (But I think her husband didn’t know this. He isn’t informed. To him, she just has disappeared.)

With his life torn apart, he starts running and on some days he even runs outside the city.

— The whole population lives in cities and most are dependent on a social allowance of some kind of nutrition bars from a local food bank … that are sometimes – whoops – poisonous. Being outside of a city is counted as suspicious behavior. Everything is controlled by a big AI. —

He encounters kind of a resistance to the government outside the city and he joins them, eventually. In German the resistance is called “Renegaten” so maybe the original term is “renegades”.

The resistance owns a big AI, too and during the endgame their AI fights the government AI. I remember the scene in which the renegade AI bids farewell to the main protagonist.

I can’t remember how the book ended but I think the renegade AI ‘died’.

333H: Big sister anticipating little brother, wonders if she can trade it for a dog (Solved!)

I received a children’s book in 1995/1996 in anticipation of my little brother. We lived in Gardner, Massachusetts at the time (central MA). The book had beautiful illustrations (something about Monique Felix’s illustrations for The Velveteen Rabbit reminds me of it), and was about a little girl finding out she was going to have a little brother and not being excited about it. She wondered if she could trade it for a dog. She also ate an egg out of an egg cup at some point in the story. I believe there was something about her getting a new coat as well, either peacoat or cape-style. The style of the book in my memory makes me think it was not necessarily American, nor necessarily published in that time period (egg cups?!).

333G: Three foster brothers in love with the same woman who became a town sheriff (Solved!)

Three boys were taken in by the same woman and grew up together. One of them met this girl at what she considered her “secret place”, but she said she would share it with him. His two foster brothers followed him, curious where he was going. When one brother teased him for hanging out with a girl, she punched him. After that, they grew to respect and like her. All through high school they were the unholy foursome. Her parents had money, but they ignored her. She envied the brothers; their foster mother took her in too.
The three boys all fell in love with her, and one night when they were drinking, they all had sex with her. She woke up ashamed, and ran from them. She became a local sheriff. I think her dad is mayor or assemblymen, but he acts like he is president – he is much more important in his head than he actually is, always harping about their “image”.
The book starts with the three men in their office. They went into business together as contractors or builders and they are looking over blueprints, when there is a phone call. It is their foster mom, calling to tell them that their girl has been beat up/attacked at work, and is in hospital. She doesn’t want them to know, but the mother is worried, so she does call them.
The men discuss it – how she ran from them, and they have tried to give her time, but they want her back. All three of them want to be in a menage relationship with her. They built a house for her, and for them, and did it so it would be everything she ever wanted, to show her they love her.
The one brother says “Let’s go get our girl”, or something like that; so they drive up to the hospital, and she is uncomfortable. They tell her they are done letting her run and avoiding them. She can’t go home and take care of herself, so she agrees to go with them. When she is released they take her to their new house. Eventually, they tell her what they want. She doesn’t think it will work – one will get jealous of the others, and it will ruin their friendship, plus she worries about her reputation as a sheriff, and what her parents will say. But she decides to give it a try.
Along the way her apartment is blown up when she goes to get some clothes, and it is plain that someone is after her.
I hope you can help me with it. I read it probably 5-6 years ago? Not quite sure.

333F: Greenwich Village jazz father and son (Solved!)


Growing up in a small town in Eastern Washington in the early 1970’s, I read a book I still remember. It’s a middle school targeted chapter book with a few line drawing illustrations. My copy was paperback. It features a father and son, the dad is a jazz musician / fan, I think they live in the Village - or at least someplace downtown NYC. Maybe there is some music that is played on the rooftop? Maybe parents are divorced? Published pre-1974.

332Z: Exceptional Animals, “Goodness Gracious!” (Solved!)

Seeking a children’s rhyming picture book, published sometime in the last 10 – 30 years; describes major characteristics of several animals (i.e., big ears of a fenec, sharp teeth of something, big spots of leopard) using the phrase “Goodness gracious!”;  final page is “Goodness gracious, what a noise . . . from girls and boys!” and it shows children playing outside at recess.

332X: Momma and Poppa Make a Midsummer’s Lantern on their Woodland Farm (Solved!)

I’m searching for a children’s picture book: The illustrations are in somewhat muted colors. I read it growing up in the ‘90s, but am not sure when it was actually published. The characters are momma and poppa, and they live on a farm in the woods. They have made a lantern (which has a face in it in the illustration) for midsummer. Momma walks through the woods, gathering strawberries and birch tree saplings into her basket. Poppa gathers eggs from the hens. Back home, momma makes a custard or shortcake with the eggs and strawberries, uses the birch saplings to make a maypole, hangs the face lantern on the pole, and they dance around it into the evening. Please help!! This has been driving me crazy.

332P: Months of the Year with a Blond Curly-Haired Girl (Solved!)

I am hoping the little info I can give you will be enough to identify a book that I would love to secure for my daughter- one of her favorites. I think the book must have dealt with months of the year instead of days of the week. The illustrations were in pastels and the little girl throughout the book had blond curly hair. My daughter would have been 5-7 years old when she was reading the book. She was born in 1968 if that helps. I have Googled every way I can think of – so far no luck. This is a long shot – I really have no expectations – if nothing else, I am so happy to have found the Loganberry Books website.