Category Archives: Solved

318W: Bird Family Takes Care of Young Girl (Solved!)

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Children’s book stumper!  A child is left at home by parents for a weekend or some length of time, and a neighbor who was supposed to care for her breaks leg and can’t.  Bird (maybe a Robin) hears her crying and somehow shrinks her down and brings her home for he and his bird wife to care for her.  They feed her the flower butter ‘n’ eggs. . . a catbird leaves an egg with their eggs. . . there might be a bird ball. . . she has a marvelous time and eventually goes home. . . I read it in the late 70s or early 80s but I think it was quite old then.  Thank you!

318K: The Magic Tent (Solved!)

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I read this book when I was young in the 80s. It was about a brother and sister (I think) who were caught in a rainstorm and happened upon a sagging, scary looking tent. They went inside and magically it was a bright, exciting room with some kind of delicious food (ice cream? cotton candy?) and I think a pinball machine? I feel like there was a witch involved, who turned out to be a good witch, but maybe I’m making that up.

317I: Native American Girl Moves From Reservation to the City (Solved)

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Children's chapter book about a Native American girl who moves from the reservation to the city with her family. The little girl is confused and embarrassed when she realizes, on her first day at the new school, that she is expected to bring lunch money. A woman gives her a donut. She makes a mental note that she has to ask her father for lunch money. Her brother runs away because of the culture shock and is discovered to have been living in a local park, hunting the urban wildlife. An officer or social services worker asks the family questions like, what is his name, how tall is he, how old, etc. and these questions strike the little girl as irrelevant because they don't mean as much as who her brother really is, like how he can run fast. Paperback. I think the cover was yellow with a picture of a Native-looking girl on it.

316Y: Young Girl Discovers Mysterious Daguerreotype (Solved!)

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I'm trying to think of this children's book I read in middle school, so sometime between 1990-1993. Probably a classic bildungsroman with a twist of a mystery. This would've been a "chapter book" more along the lines of Up a Road Slowly, and possibly set in the Midwest. I have always felt it was a Midwest/Plains state, and my feeling is that it was set sometime prior to WWII—maybe the '30s? Though I could see it being more of a setting in the Northeast, too. Almost definitely the United States, though I could see it be a surprise Canada.

I feel that it was a standalone book. I’m truly unsure about the cover. I want to say maybe there was a house on the cover in the distance, or something, but I honestly am not certain. There are no illustrations in this book that I can recall. This is for a *slightly* older audience.

The gist of the plot, or some portion of it as I remember it, is about the main character, a young girl between the ages of 11 or 12… broader, at most, would be 10-13. She’s not an orphan as far as I know. I don’t recall her having siblings, but I’m not sure enough about that one. I don’t recall her parents either, but I don’t feel that she was totally without one or both.

This girl visits a man who lives in a cabin at various times throughout the story. He lives nearbyish and as she is exploring the area over this time period, she heads to his cabin. He definitely lives alone, and the place is sparsely decorated. This is not their first meeting, either. They know each other—either through being related or nearly so. She doesn’t stay with the person she visits—she has her own home.

While in the cabin, during an early visit, she finds or is given a jewelry-box type container and inside is a daguerreotype. The box containing the daguerreotype is on a bookshelf, perhaps built-in, and is of someone she knows or to whom she is related—like a grandmother. I don’t think she quite had permission to take it down and look in the box, but the man was only a little agitated when he catches her with it. I seem to remember the person in the daguerreotype was a woman (possibly related to the MC, but I’m pretty sure related to the man in the cabin), and for some reason (I hesitate even to say this) I think she was a horsewoman in a circus-type show. I feel like he loved this woman, and not necessarily that they were married.

My memory is ludicrously sketchy on this, but I think there’s a boy featured as her friend. The boy would’ve been the same age. I feel like there is a scene (possibly the ending) where the MC is waiting in a tree or by a tree on the road to school, and this male friend of hers walks by and she feels better about this whole “growing up” thing…

Pretty sure it takes place right when school starts back, and maybe she writes a paper about the information or person related to the daguerreotype. I’m not sure of that either, but I am sure that she and her male friend investigate more about the guy in the cabin or the person in the picture. She does some research of some kind and learns more about them and, presumably, discovers the identity of the featured person in the tintype.

If I remember correctly, the book might’ve been an older one, and the spelling of ‘daguerreotype’ was a little off from what I had in my dictionary/encyclopedia. Maybe ‘daguerretype’—being more on par with simply Louis Daguerre’s last name. I remember in my AG Reading class we had to choose a previously unknown vocabulary word from our weekly reading and bring it in and define it for the class. I distinctly remember being excited about this word (which is why I feel the alternate amalgamation of Daguerre’s name with the -type suffix was used in this book (or in my dictionary)), and bringing it in.  I cannot be sure, since I can’t actually remember this book, but I feel that those terms, Daguerreotype and tintype, were used interchangeably (however incorrect that makes it). I assume it was less about describing or defining the process, and just using handy, broad terms.

I am certain of the daguerreotype being featured prominently in the story, because that’s the first I’d heard of them and I remember reading more about them myself in my World Book Encyclopedia (ah, remember those days). In looking for this book, I cannot seem to get away from books that are either nonfiction books specifically about daguerreotypes or the history of photography, or fictional books that are looking to teach through a story about this early form of photography. Which is further underscored by the fact that that is the exact word that sticks in my head about the book, and the point of the plot of which I am certain. The daguerreotype itself isn’t the main focus of the story, only the catalyst that sets this into motion.

(I think the recollection of that word might be my downfall.)

I think there’s something to do with Native Americans – and a tree that signifies something of importance. I hesitate so much to say this, because like the keyword “daguerreotype,” this one sets you on a specific and limiting search course, but … I feel as if the title was structured like an indication of a passing of time by the way some Native Americans marked time/distance to travel—as in “moons” or the like. But I have never been sure if that memory was associated with *this* book or another I read around the same time.

In that vein, I have tried both Two Moons in August and Walk Two Moons with no success—though the setting/time period for both was way off of what I remembered.

This book is not:
Up a Road Slowly
The Silver Coach
The Keepsake Chest
Return to Gone-Away
Two Moons in August
Walk Two Moons
Peachtree Island
The Long White Month
Kate and the Family Tree
West Against The Wind
Hitty, Her First Hundred Years
Edward’s Portrait

Thanks very much for any and all help.

316F: Two sisters go to the rocksy-tocksy-wocksies (Solved)

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I’m looking for this children’s book about two sisters. Big sister must take little sister out to play while mom is busy in the kitchen.  Little sister sings “We’re going to the rocksy-tocksy-wocksies” as they head to the shore to play on the rocks. Little sister slips and falls but big sister rescues her. My daughter checked this book out of the elementary school library around 1989-1992, but it had been published well before that. Thank you.

315A: Secret of Stonehedge (or The Secret of Stonehedge) (Solved)

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The story is about a teenage girl who doesn’t remember her past.  She moves to a new town with her parents.  They live in a big house with a hedge around it.   There is a mystery involved with the house.  I don’t remember the events in the story, but somehow her life is in danger and I think she starts remembering things from her past and possibly the house.  Her parents might not actually be her parents.  At the end, someone to kill her at the house where she is alone because whatever she is starting to remember will expose what they have done.  She finally remembers everything during the fight? for her life.  I read this book probably in the late 60’s early 70’s.

314O: Silver Blonde Cousins (Solved)

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It’s a mystery/thriller, with some paranormal overtones. I was born in ’66 and I believe I’d read it by the time I entered high school in ’80, so it must have been written sometime before then. Possibly way before then, as I recall the book was a beat-up paperback when I picked it up.

It’s about a set of female cousins. One is dramatically beautiful, outgoing and rich, and kind of mean; she dies (I think before the book’s action begins) and leaves her estate to her cousin, who bears a certain resemblance to her but is kind and introverted. The good cousin moves into the house and begins thinking her dead cousin was murdered, I think? She also starts behaving oddly – more like the dead cousin. She dyes her hair to match the dead cousin. I vaguely recall a reference to “silver blonde” or something like that.

There’s a love interest for the cousin – I want to say he’s a lawyer? And that he also had some kind of relationship with the dead cousin? Maybe?

I think the dead cousin’s name is Cathy or Kathy, or maybe it’s the surviving cousin’s name? I don’t remember how the book develops the ghost angle – whether the ghost is real or just the cousin’s imagination – but I’m pretty sure it turns out she was murdered.

There’s a supporting character who’s a friend of the living cousin. I remember she shows up at one point and is described as an earth mother type, I think, and says something about the coffee she’s offered – like “heavens, yes, keep it coming” or maybe “I like my coffee like I like my men” but I could be wrong on that.

God I hope that’s enough because it’s driving me nuts, and I can’t find it, and this is all I recall.