Category Archives: Solved

221D: Scary Children’s Book from the 1980’s – Solved

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I have been trying to remember this book for so many years, this is what I remember:

It had actual black and white photos, not illustrations. The character was a little girl and at the beginning, it is her birthday and she is happy and the setting is bright and cheerful and she is in her bedroom. Then as you turn the page, it is dark and creepy and she is alone in a home of some kind, so I think that she may have been dreaming. From what I remember, there are several photos of her exploring wherever she is, there is a kitchen, basement, garden grounds, etc.

The very last page is an image of blurry figures or what appear to be ghosts. I remember wondering of those were her parents.

There may have been a pet in the story as well. It wasn’t a long book, 20 pages at the most. I read it in the mid 1980’s, in about the 3rd or 4th grade.

I’m hoping you can help!

220E: Lady Dragon Transforms into Princess (Solved)

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This was a children’s illistrated book about a lady dragon who was in love with a knight but all he tried to do was vanquish her. She went to the wizard who made a potion (a raspberry fizz maybe?) that turned her into a human princess. I think there was a bit about how her scales turned into a carriage but I could very well be wrong. She met her prince but it turned out he was kinda lame and boastful and not what she imagined. However, it turned out that HE was actually a dragon too who was turned into a human and he was much better as a dragon so the wizard made the potion again and they all lived happily ever after as dragons. I think the last illustration was them drinking fizzy soda together through straws out of the same glass.

217G: 3-year-old tiger; duck with duck-head umbrella (Solved)

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I was born in 1947 and probably owned this story book (illustrated with line drawings) when I was 4–6 years old. My memory is fuzzy, but here goes! One story, more or less in verse, was about a 3-year-old tiger who “lumbered along and lumbered along,” searching for 3-day-old meat. (He eventually found that 3-day-old meat was too old to eat.) Another story was about a mother who took her son clothes shopping and bought him 3 of everything: 3 shirts, 3 belts, 3 pairs of shoes, etc. A third story was about a duck who had a umbrella with a duck-head handle. I believe there was also a story about a stray cat who eventually found a home; the story possibly involved bottles of milk outside the door of a house.

217F: General story about competition between girl from a working and a rich girl who gets everything she wants. (Solved)

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Book about two girls who love horses and art but are competing against each other in an art contest. I think their names are Lori and Darlene. Lori desperately loves and wants to buy a Palomino but has to work (saving cedar shingles off old barns?) to earn money but someone is burning old barns down and burns some of the shingles she has collected and jeopardizes her chance of getting the Palomino. Also remember “Lori’s” dad making her an art loft in the barn, then “Darlene” gets her dad to make her a fancy, much-better studio. Book references Ephesians 4:31-32. General story about competition between hard-working girl from a working family versus a rich girl who gets everything she wants.

217C: Twin Girls Separated as Babies (Solved)

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I’m looking for the title of a book I read sometime between 1984 and 1991, which had probably not been published very long before that, about twin girls who had been separated and adopted by different couples when they were very young. I think their parents had died, and the twins were split by their grandparents. One twin lived in San Francisco. (I’ll call her Twin 1.) They discovered that they were twins when one of the girls found her original birth certificate which listed her as a twin and confronted her adoptive parents. The girls met, and Twin 2 went to San Francisco to visit Twin 1. There was something spooky going on, and the San Francisco fog was played up for the creepiness factor. I believe it ended up that Twin 1 knew someone or something was trying to kill her, and when she discovered that she had a twin she planned to take over Twin 2’s life and leave Twin 2 to die in her place.

This is not Stranger With My Face by Lois Duncan.

217B: Girl Coping with Parents’ Divorce and Father’s Second Marriage (Solved)

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The book I’m trying to remember is a YA novel about a girl in middle or high school. Her parents were recently divorced, and her father remarried not long after. I think his new wife was a teacher, or maybe a substitute, at the girl’s school. The girl has a new babysitter or nanny or au pair, possibly an older high school or college student. I think they might have held a seance or used a Ouija board together, but I’m not positive. There was a scene with the girl and her mother driving in the rain, and the girl was thinking about her father’s second marriage, with the words “Divorced in (a month, maybe December), married in (another month, possibly May)” running through her head like a chant in time with the windshield wipers. I think the girl’s last name is Beckwith, or something similar, but that’s the only name I remember. I think it was probably published between 1985 and 1991, or sometime close to that.