Category Archives: Unsolved

303T: The kidnappers find out that he’s a great dancer

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Here’s the book I’m trying to find, and all I know about it.

It a boy who either gets lost or kidnapped, but the kidnappers find out that he’s a great dancer and start to make him perform dances in front of people and on stages. That’s really all I got – that’s not much, I know. Oh, and for some reason it stands out in my mind as a book that was very similar to “In A Dark Room and Other Scary Stories” by Alvin Schwartz — this was an illustrated kids book that was dark and strange.

That’s all I got.

Thank you! And good luck solving this mystery! I really really appreciate it.

 

303S: A 90s or earlier young adult book about a teen girl in poverty

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A young adult (YA) book I read in the late 90s:

The main character is a teenage girl. She lives with her mother and younger sibling. She lives in poverty/school outcast.

Three events from the book:

Something about the younger sibling having a pee accident and the vivid description from the teen

Something about eating cereal for dinner

At one point, her family gets a bag of free clothes, which she is really excited to wear to school even though it’s stained. Might be leather skirt and white sweater?

303P: A Christmas story with a house on stilts

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Looking for a book that my sister remembers, hoping to find it for her and surprise her.

She remembers this:

1) Early in the book is an illustration of houses on stilts

2) There is porridge that has a single almond hidden in it and one lucky person will find it

3) There is a man with a broken tooth

4) I think she said it is a Christmas story

Thank you!!!

303N: Rowing through the air, as spirits, in a “spirit canoe”

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In 1980, I read a book whose story details I recall only dimly. I do not recall the title.

Two children travel far from home to another place. I forget the purpose or motive for their journey. I believe it may have been a brother and a sister.

At one point during their long journey, they sleep in a friend / ally / friendly stranger’s houseboat (or boat or water-home of some kind.) The young girl (I think) listens to the water lapping up under the floor as she is going to sleep.

Near the end of the book, they encounter a civilization which had at some point stopped living in the world and now existed in a spirit form. The memory I recall when reading about this encounter, is that an individual (s) of this culture were rowing by them, or above them, as if rowing through the air, as spirits, in a “spirit canoe.”

The mood of their encounter with this race of spirit people was haunting, nostalgic, and a sense of loss or grief for the children. As a ten year old, I was moved somewhat sorrowfully when the children learned of or interacted with these spirits.

303M: Who Owns the Sun (not by Chbosky; much younger)

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In 1974, aged 4, I repeatedly traced the letters of the book which I recall was entitled Who Owns the Sun?

I have since looked for it and only ever found Chbosky’s Who Owns the Sun online; that is not the book I’m seeking.

In the book I remember, it was thin and paperback with color drawings. The illustrations may have been watercolors but my memory isn’t certain.

The storyline: a chick hatches from its egg on a farm. Once out of the egg, the chick goes from farm animal to farm animal asking “who owns the sun?”

Each farm animal’s response is somewhat unique but amounts to “I don’t know,” or “it isn’t known.” The chick does not learn who owns the sun by the end of the story.

303K: Johnny Shiloh

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I am looking for children’s book from 1960’s based on Disney Movie Johnny Shiloh with pictures from the Disney movie (shown on Wide World of Disney). This is Not the novel and NOT the gold key comic book. It may be from Scholastic Books but do not know. It would be paperback book.

303J: All For Nothing?

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They had this picture book at my preschool in the mid-’80s, though it may have been published earlier. It was about a boy who got into all sorts of trouble “for nothing,” as he described it. Escapades included putting water in the gas tank of the car and chopping down the family Christmas tree (“Sometimes they even spank me for nothing!”). The story ended with something like, “Oh well…in the end I guess it’s all ok.” The illustrations were large, simple, and goofy, almost like kids’ drawings; I remember the characters had big mitt-like hands and line-drawn smiles and frowns.

303I: Eye of the Needle

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I am looking for a childrens/YA book I would have read in the early 1980s (probably not written before 1950) in which there was a rock formation known as the Needle, because it was needle-shaped, with a hollow at the top, in which was a haystack – so at some point the hero or heroine was looking for something in a haystack in the Needle.  That is the one detail I remember.