I own The Zen of Seeing by Frederick Franck from those years, and I thought he also wrote a book about dying with black and white ink and watercolor illustrations in the early 1980s. However, I don’t think he was the author, though the book I am recalling had a similar look. I gave it to my landlady whose husband was dying, and she found it very comforting. I have a couple of friends now in similar circumstances and I would love to track down a copy. I think the word “Zen” was in the title, but I am not sure. I don’t think it’s the one with the spiral on the cover and the title that I see on Amazon. Do you know what book this might be?

We are looking for a series of science books for children from 1960-1962 the premise was a father who was a science writer with some kids that tagged along on his writing assignments about chemistry, physics, automotive, etc.

Deep Adventures, Upstairs in "a big tree" ca. 1968. First-grader, public library "The Big Tree"? remembered as title, but years of search give no results from that. Children's book. Large, maybe; pictures, of course. A boy wanders in a wood? Sees and enters a big tree, with a winding stair he climbs, filled w adventures. Mood: Contemplative, imaginative, an aperture of depth/ psyche to standard fare. At one pt., illustrated, the boy upstairs "in a tree" lies awake in a bed looking across room at a chalkboard? His dad has left a puzzling message to decipher. I recall the book as gentle, surreal, and profound.

It’s the story of a family living in a town just after the Civil War.  In one chapter, the news comes that Lincoln has died and all the women in the town tear up their black dresses and drape the fabric over the house fronts.  In another chapter, the mother buys fabric to make the girls dresses.  The fabric is hated by the girls, a mustard and brown check, so they get matches and burn holes in the dark checks.   The youngest daughter gets deathly ill.  They had to shave her head she’s so sick.  When her hair grows back, it comes in curly.  She is sent to the country for the summer to recover and she comes back pink-cheeked and healthy.  

I remember reading an epistolary YA book when I was a pre-teen (so in the late 80s/early 90s). It was about a group of kids who go on a field trip to a fort. While there (overnight trip) the adults all get shellfish poisoning from bad clams they have foraged. The kids then take over, and end up defending the fort from a biker gang.

I read a science fiction novel from my junior high library, so sometime between 1974-1976 but I don’t know how old it was at the time. It was a coming-of-age story. The point of view character was a boy/young man. He and his group crashed(?)/were stranded on an alien, rocky planet. There are adults with him, but somehow he has to take charge. He encounters another human castaway/refugee, whom he takes to be another boy and who is wary of him. Turns out the other boy is a girl in disguise. They decide to cooperate. Any ideas what book this was?

I’m looking for a book series – one about a person as the figure of death, one about a person as the figure of time.. Maybe they were from a sci fi author?