Category Archives: Unsolved

329F: Creatures on Venus

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The book I am interested in is a juvenile / YA science fiction book most likely written in the late 40s or 50s or very early 60s before we landed space probes there. The main character is a boy. They land on Venus and find deserts and no life, but along the way the main character gets lost and finds a valley with dinosaur-like creatures and small primate creatures. Eventually, the primary expedition finds him and all turns out well. I have searched the net but have not found any trace, I checked it our from our public library many times in the 1980s. Thanks!

329E: Myfanwy – A Romance

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“Myfanwy” is a short story that was included in an anthology of teen romances.  The preface of the book had the lyrics to either “Why Must I be a Teenager in Love” or “Do You Wanna Dance?” The story involves a teenage boy who attends a boy’s school and a beautiful girl named Myfanwy would be seen at church, but would never speak to anyone, and one day, the boy is sitting under a tree reading and Myfanwy approaches him and they talk.

329C: Ghost of California chicken racer

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Published before 1989, likely current setting is late 70's or early 80's. Teenage girl with mom and brother, no dad, move to a 3 story house off the California coast line. The house has a curved driveway with a tree stump in the grass. The family does not have a car, but the girl keeps hearing a car idling in the driveway. Then starts to see an oil leak when everyone else sees dirt. Later she sees a 50's style car (blue if I remember correctly) and a man in his late teens or early 20's in a bomber jacket. Man died in a chicken race when his car went over the cliff. He is asking the girl to help him find his girlfriend from that time, who used to live in the house. Detail about the house is that the circular window on the 3rd floor always breaks out even after the tree was cut. Which used to be tall enough to reach the 3rd floor window. Below the house is a small cottage surrounded by lots of flowers and the person who lives there befriends the girl. She is the new girl in school and everyone thinks she is crazy, especially when the ghost of the man in the bomber jacket starts to dance with her on the school's cruise along the coast. Of course, no one can see him and everyone thinks she is dancing by herself. The cover has the picture of the girl, brunette I think, standing in the driveway, with a see-through image of the man in the bomber jacket and his car behind her.

329A: Flute Turns Fruit Into Candy

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I’m looking for a children’s book, at least 30 years old. I don’t know the title name, but the plot is about a piper man, I think, that walks with 1 or 2 children in a forest, and when he plays his flute the fruits on the tree turns into candies.
That’s all I remember, we tried in the family to locate the book but failed. Hope you can help.

328Z: Animal Entourage And A Big Tree

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I am looking for a picture book I read as a child in the 1970s.  Publication would have to be before 1978, no clue what decade.

A boy goes walking through a landscape (forest?) and comes upon different animals. Each one has a musical instrument and joins his entourage. It sounds like a parade, but it seemed more like a Pied Piper of Hamelin situation where he somehow got them all to follow him. At one point I remember a big tree. I don’t remember how it ended. The illustrations were line drawings in a style similar to Ernest Shepard (Winnie-the-Pooh).

IT IS NOT:
The Parade of the Animals by James Abell Wright
Sophie’s Animal Parade by Amy Dixon
Animal Parade by Jakki Wood
Animals on Parade by Molly Burke Hamilton
Animal Parade by Clare Youngs

Thank you for your help!

328Y: Magical Friend Is Bad Influence

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I’ve been looking for this book for about 12 years and would have first encountered it sometime before about 2007. It’s a children’s book about a lonely child (I believe a girl) who’s always writing in her notebook. One day she gets contacted by an imaginary friend, who communicates with her using the notebook, and this friend begins to teach the child magic. (I believe at one point, a potion using the wings of lacewing flies.) This imaginary friend’s help grows more and more sinister as time goes on, until they try to convince the child to burn down their school.
All help in finding this book would be much appreciated!!

328X: Addicted Author Deals With Occult Writer Father’s Antics

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I read this book around the year 2000. The opening scene is a son who returns home to find a naked woman swimming in the family pool, another one of his fathers acolytes.

The author’s father is a well-known writer who also has a cult-like following. I believe the action takes place in New England. I believe the father writes nonfiction books on the occult and paranormal.

The author, who is also a writer, has a substance-abuse problem which involves drinking and taking any kind of mind altering drugs that he can find.  The best writing in this book is about what it’s like to be addicted. I believe the situation in New England is that the father has remarried but his ex-wife also lives on the compound. This is the author’s mother.

The writing is excellent, especially the description of the author’s desperation digging through his father’s recliner looking for the odd pain pill.

Thanks for your help in locating this book as I would really like to re-read it.

328V: Early 2000s Fantasy Novel

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I'm looking for the title of a book that's been bugging my bf for years - he read it in the early 2000s (he thinks that's when it came out) and when I asked him for a description, he said he thinks they were teens and all versions of classic monsters. One of them was Medusa in disguise hunting some kind of agents (and there are cutaway chapters where she's hunting them) and she maybe had braided hair? They may have either been ON an island or IN Ireland and were maybe collected together because they were told that Medusa was after them, but she was actually after these agents/government guys and there to protect them. Also, one of them was maybe a swamp monster?