Softcover book of color photographs with fairy-lore text. That is, images are actual unmanipulated photographs but the text relates these to fairies. I am confident it is a book of photographs as well as relating at least some of the photographs to fairies. Other recollections are softer.
Category Archives: Solved
321V: A Gazing Ball And Balloons (Solved)
So when I was in 6th grade (1992), I had a wonderful teacher. She pushed us to read and loved books herself. We had a project at the end of the year. I can’t remember if this description I’m about to give you is of 2 books or one. My 11 year old son is an avid reader and I’d love to find this/these books for him.
There was a gazing ball (like a mirrored one) in a garden. It was not scary, maybe some mystery but definitely not scary. Maybe a young girl.
And my other memory is of a hot air balloon. I feel like there were a lot of people on the balloon. It could have been actual balloons and not the hot air version. And I want to say they were on a huge piece of wood not a basket. I’m thinking it may have been an award winning book but I’m not for sure on that either. I have no idea if it is one book or two and this has driven me crazy for years. I’ve looked it up every way I know how.
321R: Girl Learns Graceful Behavior From Fairy Queen
There’s a book of fiction about a girl who lives in or near a castle- I seem to remember it won an award- I think I found it at a Scholastic book fair. This girl is somehow considered badly behaved- and she’s allowed to run wild. She is kidnapped by fairies who live in a huge underground warren (I think under a mountain) to be a servant. They’re drugged every night with the food that she discovers if she skips, she’s more alert but struggles with claustrophobia. Because of her refusal to eat the drugged food, she catches the interest of the Queen of fairies who teaches her, mostly through humiliation, how to walk and move gracefully. She’s eventually rescued and the fairies are forced into the other world, sealing their mountain.
I can’t find this book at all- My sister claims she never read it and I looked through the books at my parents house without finding it.
321L: Amnesiac Girl Buys Horse (Solved)
I am looking for a 1960-1980 era book, about a girl with amnesia that ends up working on a horse farm, buys a horse from going to slaughter, and then discovers she used to be rich and jumped show horses. Her step parent [I want to say father] ended up being the culprit. The point of view was from the girl, and I want to say the book starts with a car accident, which causes the amnesia.
321I: Tombstone Mystery (Solved)
Seeking a children’s book from the 80s. Possibly a tombstone on the cover. A mystery. Her parents leave her at home alone. She solves the mystery by reaching into a coffin and finding something. She is wet and muddy.
321H: Wisps Haunt Village Near Reservoir (Solved!)
The protagonist lives in a village at the base of a mountain. Everyone in this village owns some kind of cat-like animal with the semi-magical power to take bad feelings away except the protagonist who is allergic. Getting water requires an arduous journey up the mountain to a reservoir, made more dangerous by the “wisps” (or maybe will-o-wisps?). The wisps are little balls of light that come out at night which everyone fears.
The protagonist follows one of the cat-like animals one day and discovers a graveyard where they go to die. She discovers that, when they die, they release wisps, which are like all the pent up bad feelings they’ve absorbed over their lives. While there she climbs some kind of knoll and I’m fuzzy on the details but something happens that results in her being bound in some way to a newly created wisp, which gives the wisp some sort of subtle influence over her and her emotional state.
The protagonist then has to journey home while bound to a wisp, which tries to do things like demoralize her and lead her off cliffs. She reaches the reservoir and the wisp manipulates her into jumping/falling in. She ends up sucked through an underground river and wakes up in a cave on the other side of her village. The wisp is there, but the connection it had to her is broken. So she’s discovered the reservoir is connected to and underground stream which runs near the village. She goes back with plans to tell her village about the river and ideas about to tap it for water.
Thank you in advance so much for your help, I’ve been trying and failing to find this book for 15 years!
320U: Wizard Teaches Children Life Lessons (Solved)
320J: Fold-Out Illustrated Pig’s Adventure Series (Solved)
I’m looking for a book about a pig (or some animal, but I am pretty sure it was a pig) who goes on adventures. The books were a series, and were all fold-out books, with illustrations only, no text. The books were wider than they were tall, to accommodate the fold-out pages, which were flaps that unfolded to the right. One that I remember involved the pig going camping and getting rained on. I read them in the early ’80s, so I imagine they were published in the ’60s or ’70s.
319S: Kids Trained To Control Virtual Soldiers (Solved)
Kids trained to 'push' virtual soldiers on a digital (AR/VR) tabletop. The soldiers turn out to be real people. There are two kids (boy and girl?) who are able to sneak out and talk to each other during their training. I think this was a YA novel as I read it in elementary school in the late 90's/early 00's
319K: Daughter of Veterinarian helps rescue hoarded animals (Solved!)
Paperback, probably from Scholastic in mid-70s. The veterinarian’s daughter helps rescue a trailer of hoarded animals. Her father’s girlfriend helps and gets completely overwhelmed by the suffering, which makes the girl like her more. The girl refers to herself as an iron hand in a wool mitten. She dates a boy who likes Bartok. Any help appreciated.