Category Archives: Unsolved

325A: Pubescent Children Develop Telepathic Powers

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There’s a novel that I read years ago (late 70’s or early 80’s) from a library in England for which I can no longer remember the author or the title; so if you recognize the content, I’d be a happy camper. 🙂

The only things I can remember are…

1/ It was about mental powers, telepathy, etc

2/ Children developed these abilities at or around puberty (I think). If I remember correctly, the general populace/government reacted badly to these children.

3/ There was a woman scientist who studied these children and came up with a way to synthesize the catalyst, which she then tried on herself and, after a really rough transition, found that she had the same abilities.

3.1/ I’ve also got a vague recollection (so take it with a grain of salt) that other adults who tried to gain these powers died.

4/ The initial symptom of these powers was an increase in sensory perception and intense pleasure – enough to lock the affected person into repeating whatever felt good regardless of what it was doing to them.

4.1/ The woman scientist/doctor who managed to synthesize the activating chemical and used it on herself ended up “making love” to a tree (I’ve got a dim memory of the description of the feel of the bark against her naked skin).

4.2/ Another scene (probably just a paragraph or sentence) had a description of a boy who kept “pleasuring himself” for hours; even though he was now raw and bleeding, he couldn’t stop. (I think this was one of the notes the scientist/doctor compiled about the affected children, rather than being a central theme or character development).

4.3/ The powers allowed the children to feel the emotions of others (though I do not remember if it was limited to others with powers or everyone in general) and they banded together to feel safe/loved/etc. when the rest of the world turned against them due to fear. I don’t remember if it was true telepathy or just extreme empathy.

5/ Once she had the same abilities as the children, the woman scientist joined up with a group of them – presumably to help defend them against the haters.

Beyond that, I have no idea. The only other non-story items I know are…

  • I read it late-70’s or early 80’s.
  • Given the more grown-up content, it is not likely to be a children’s book; though it could be Teens and older.

I know it’s not much to go on, but it’s been driving me batty trying to remember the title.

 

324Z: Sports Car Race With Dirty Oil

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When I was a kid in the 1950’s, I read a series of ‘car books’ about a young man who became interested in sports car racing.  I remember that the name of the car manufacturer was ‘black’ something and as an advertising promotion, they once drove one of the cars many, many miles (20,000+?) without an oil change, and then entered the car in a sports car race.

Any of this sound familiar to anyone?

324Y: Fairies and Giants and Creatures In One Massive Compilation

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I am looking for a children’s book I read in the late 70s or early 80s that was about fairies and giants and other mystical creatures. It was huge (to a 6 year old!), 13 to 15 inches in height & hundreds of pages printed on very thin tissue-like paper that was pastel multi-coloured, in sections. A pink section, then a yellow section, then a pale green section, etc. I believe the coloured sections coordinated with the sections of the book which i think were divided into “stories about giants”, “stories about fairies”. It may have had “A Great Big Book….” or “The Big Book of….” in the title. It was large print with pictures here and there.

Thank you!!

324X: People Do Their Night Jobs

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Seeking a 1940s or 1950s children’s picture book.  I believe the illustrations were somewhat colored and others were only line drawings of color.
The story tells about all the different jobs that people do during the night while we sleep, such as the mail trucks, milk trucks, or trains that deliver things.  Bakeries, maybe?
It was a treasured book at my great-grandmother’s house for my father when he was little, and then I read it over and over when I was little.  Sadly, it was either sold or taken by his aunt when the estate was settled.

324W: Dinosaurs Galore

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I was looking for my favorite book as a child when I stumbled across this website.  It was a hardcover (thinner) book on Dinosaurs.  The covers were gray, I believe it had a Tyrannosaurus Rex on the front cover, possibly in red writing.
Regretfully I don’t remember the exact title, just Dinosaurs, it was purchased around 1992.
Each page showed large depictions of each dinosaur in its natural habitat and some pictures were quite scary (or maybe that’s because I was a kid).
On the back cover or towards the back of the picture book it had a depiction of a Saber Tooth Tiger attacking or eating another dinosaur.

324T: Redhead Making A Necklace

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I’m looking for a picture book that is possibly German, maybe Swedish or maybe something else. It is illustrated in a very rough ripped paper collage. There is a little girl who is making a necklace; I think she is naked or  barely clothed. She has red hair. At one point she goes into a cave with gems and gets a gem for her necklace. I never actually read the words as I don’t speak whatever language it was in. She may have also gotten a shell for her necklace but I’m less sure of that. Thanks so much for any help.

324S: Haunted House Mystery; Culprit Is A Pet Frog

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This was a book on cassette – it may have had an accompanying read along book.  I checked it out from the library all the time in the mid to late 90’s.

There was a group of kid detectives who were asked in to investigate strange noises in an old house and prove it wasn’t haunted. There was a sick, bedridden boy visiting the owner of the house. After investigating, the detectives found that the sick boy had a secret pet frog that was causing the spooky sounds. The sick boy might have been visiting from a different country.

324R: Teen Son and Father in 20th Century help Patient who speaks Ancient Greek return to hidden Greek location

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For some time I have been trying to remember the name and author of a book I read when I was around 13 years old, in the 1960’s.  I believe the book would have been written in the 1950’s or early 1960’s, although maybe it was earlier from the 1940’s.  I borrowed it from the public library in town.

It was by a male author who also wrote adult mysteries.  My father recognized the author’s name and so also read this book and we talked and joked about it a little bit that year.

The plot is generally, that there is a boy, (young teen?) whose father is either a doctor or professor or archeologist ,who must speak Greek, because he is called in to talk to a patient who speaks ancient Greek.  The patient says that he is from Greece (somewhere in ancient Greece, only to him it is the current and only one).   Apparently he died and was sent out across the River Styx and ended up in a hospital or a mental institution in England, I believe.

So he wasn’t really dead when he was sent on his journey to the afterlife.   As the father and the patient talk, the father and the son decide to go with the patient to retrace his journey and find the ancient Greek outpost that has somehow survived into the the 20th century.  They find it and although I still can visualize this place, surrounded by mountains and cut off from the modern world, I cannot remember the ending of the book either.

I remember odd lines and scenes from the book.  For example, the son has decided to read the Bible front to back and reflects upon some of the odd customs and the many battles in the Old Testament.  Also, one of the things the patient says is that he prefers to clean himself by stepping into a basin of water and not the contraption where you pull on a chain and you are rained upon.

I have looked at many of the mystery authors of the time and have tried to see if they wrote such a book to no avail.  I also looked in the Public Library where I grew up but it was too overwhelming and there is a good chance that book is not only out of print but was put into one of their many book sales years ago.

I cannot remember the title.  Did it have “Zeus” in it somewhere?  Did it refer to the river Styx?  Did it have some cute title like the Greek Urn Cracked?   The title must have captured my attention.

I appreciate your help with this as periodically I become obsessed with finding it.