Category Archives: Solved

295N: The Lonely Doll meets The Curious Clubhouse (Solved)

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I read a juvenile novel in the 1980s (from my school library). It may have been from the 1960s or 1970s about a very lonely girl who moved to a new house in the country, and while exploring, she found a secret playhouse that had dolls and teddy bears in it, and I think they came to life. Kind of like The Lonely Doll meets The Curious Clubhouse, but definitely not either of those! It had illustrations, maybe an orange cover, and I feel like Secret may have been in the title, and the author’s last name began with G or H?

295M: Roommates bond (Solved)

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I read a book as a young teenager in the late 1950s entitled Roommates; it was about two girls who bonded as roommates. The book was touching and so poignant that I realized the potency of literature then. I believe the first name of the author may have been Rosemary. I probably borrowed the book from the Brooklyn Public Library.

 

294X: The Perfect House (Solved)

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I read this book in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and here is a somewhat lengthy synopsis of the entire story (which I used in a library school course as a story-telling subject while I was getting my MLS).  Please help me identify the book!  It’s been a life-long unsolved mystery for me!

There once was an old woman who had lived for a long time in a blue farmhouse.   Now this house was not perfect, by any means.  It needed a fresh coat of paint, and the roof leaked when it rained, and the shutters hung crooked on the windows.

But it was comfortable, and it was home to the old woman and her horse and her dog and her cat.  The horse liked to graze in the meadow behind the house.  The dog liked to jump and play in the stream that ran through the meadow.  And the cat liked to chase mice in the attic.

One day, the old woman decided that the house was too run-down and that she must find a new house to live in.  So she packed up all her belongings and loaded them into her wagon.  She hitched the horse to the wagon, called for her dog and cat, and drove on down to the end of the road.

At the corner, she took a right-hand turn, and there, down the road a bit was a house just standing open and empty and waiting for someone to move in.  It had a fresh coat of green paint, and the roof looked new, and the shutters hung straight on the windows.

The old woman decided that this must be the perfect house, so she unhitched the wagon, and unpacked her things, and moved right in.

After about a week, she noticed that her horse seemed very sad.  He just moped around the little back yard all day with nothing much to do.  The old woman thought and wondered and thought about what could be making her horse so sad.  Then she realized that there was no meadow for him to graze in.

Well, the old woman could not abide by a sad horse, and she knew that she had to find a house with a meadow for her horse.  So she packed up all her belongings and loaded them into her wagon.  She hitched the horse to the wagon, called for her dog and cat, and drove on down to the end of the road.

At the corner, she took a right-hand turn, and there, down the road a bit was a house just standing open and empty and waiting for someone to move in.  The red paint was a little faded, but the roof looked new, and the shutters hung straight on the windows.

The old woman saw that there was a meadow behind the house for her horse to graze in, and so she decided that this must be the perfect house.  She unhitched the wagon, and unpacked her things, and moved right in.

After about a week, she noticed that her dog seemed very sad.  He just moped around the meadow all day with nothing much to do.  The old woman thought and wondered and thought about what could be making her dog so sad.  Then she realized that there was no stream for him to jump and play in.

Well, the old woman could not abide by a sad dog, and she knew that she had to find a house with a streaming running through the meadow for her dog.  So she packed up all her belongings and loaded them into her wagon.  She hitched the horse to the wagon, called for her dog and cat, and drove on down to the end of the road.

At the corner, she took a right-hand turn, and there, down the road a bit was a house just standing open and empty and waiting for someone to move in.  The yellow paint was a little faded and the roof looked old, but the shutters hung straight on the windows.

The old woman saw that there was a stream running through the meadow for her dog, and so she decided that this must be the perfect house.  She unhitched the wagon, and unpacked her things, and moved right in.

After about a week, she noticed that her cat seemed very sad.  He just moped around the house all day with nothing much to do.  The old woman thought and wondered and thought about what could be making her cat so sad.  Then she realized that there were no mice in the attic for him to chase.

Well, the old woman could not abide by a sad cat, and she knew that she had to find a house with mice in the attic for her cat.  So she packed up all her belongings and loaded them into her wagon.  She hitched the horse to the wagon, called for her dog and cat, and drove on down to the end of the road.

At the corner, she took a right-hand turn, and there, down the road a bit was a house just standing open and empty and waiting for someone to move in.  The blue paint was faded, and the roof looked old, and the shutters hung crooked on the windows.

But the old woman found that there were mice in the attic for her cat to chase, and a stream for her dog to jump and play in, and a meadow for her horse to graze in.  And she decided that this must be the perfect house. (It looked a little bit like this one.)  And it felt like home.

294R: Young Adult Fantasy Featuring Giant Blob (Solved)

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Our teacher read us “A Wrinkle In Time” when I was in the seventh grade, about 1980. At the end of this book, there was one chapter from another book, sort of a promotional sample. It featured a fantasy warrior of some kind looking at a giant blob that contained the half-digested remains of many other warriors, their armor and their weapons, spears and such. I always wanted to read that story, never found out the name. Since it was at the end of the L’Engle book, I thought it might be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, but I don’t know how to research it. Ring any bells?

 

294M: Teeth Vs. No Teeth (Solved)

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A children’s story about a girl who goes off to sea with a bunch of toys, including a toy soldier (but he was probably a toy sailor or sea captain)? Eventually, a duck leads a mutiny of all of the toys with no teeth against the toys with teeth. I must have read this in the 70’s as a hardcover in my school library and it seemed turn-of-the-century but who knows. I believe it had a sad ending.

294F: Magic Marbles (Solved!)

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This was a YA book that I read back in the 1960s or 70s about a girl who wanted a forever home. It might have been set in England. She had marbles, or maybe just one marble, that she thought carried power. At the end of the book, the marble rolled under the front porch of her new home and she decided that meant that they were there to stay.

293S: Children’s march/walk to Washington (Solved)

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This was a young adult novel about a group of children who are compelled to walk from New England to D. C. as a form of protest (maybe echoes of nuclear war?). One of the kids is, I think, the granddaughter of the president but keeps that a secret. As the march continues, more children join in. There’s some sort of mystical element. I read the book in the mid-1980s.