Category Archives: Unsolved

299Y: Jewish family jewelry business

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I’m searching for the title/author/copies of a multi-volume series about a Jewish family in the jewelry business in Eastern Europe – though I vaguely recall that the series might have started with a middle eastern trader – maybe.  The series ended with WWII – I think. Maybe in Vienna? I feel like I read these in the 1980s – in paperback. So they were probably published earlier than that. I liked the series so much – but now I can’t remember anything more about them.

299V: Let’s get to work!

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Very bright coloured picture book.  Blocky figures of workers going to a job site and using every piece of heavy equipment imaginable. They carry lunch boxes, break for lunch and leave at the end of the day.  Plain language. My boys (b. 1986 and b. 1989) loved it!

299U: Slave uprising/revolt

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I read a book in the 90s….around 1990-1992 probably. It was checked out from the library so I don’t know how old it was. It was fiction.

The plot was of a wealthy white family, possibly English or British. They owned a number of slaves and the slaves revolted, killing everyone in the family except for a young girl 8-14 years old probably). I think they stabbed the family to death. The slaves took her to live with them and I remember her working outside to grow food and talking about how she would take off her shirt and let her skin get tan, which her mother would have hated. She loved the freedom of living with them. It seems like it was set in the late 1800s or early 1900s.

299T: Fairies Tattoo Naughty Girl’s Face

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I am looking for a children’s book that was a favorite of mine at my grandma’s house growing up. I’ve been searching for years trying to find what the name of this book was, with no luck. Despite it being fairies, and involving colours, it’s not Andrew Lang.  This is what I remember of it:

It was a hardbound book, blue or green cover, with embossed printing. So probably published prior to 1950s

The story revolved around a little girl who wasn’t very nice, so she is visited by a fairy who’s name is similar to “tintinnabulum” (I remember that very distinctly). This fairy caused a word to appear on the girl’s forehead (possibly the word KIND) that only the girl and the fairies could see; if the girl acted kindly, the word would fade with each kind act, for each unkind act it would grow darker.

The girl was then put in a hall with seven doors, one for each color of the rainbow- she needed to travel through each fairy realm, do deeds that would remove the word on her forehead, and find the door back to the hall. Each of the realms had something to do with the color of the door (Like, the light blue door’s realm was in the sky, and the dark blue was under water).

Eventually she goes through all the doors, the word is gone, and she gets to go back home.

299Q: Chased by geese trying to get gooseberries

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Kids book from 1970s/1980s. Kids solve a mystery based on hidden clues they find – at their grandparents house maybe? I forget where the first clue was or how it started. The second clue (maybe?) is found in a loose stone of a stone fence. Then there’s something about kids being chased by geese trying to get gooseberries. The last clue is found tucked in an Indian Headdress socket where feather would fit in. Thank you! Been searching for years.

299O: The (first) Cold War

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I read this when I was in Middle School in the late 1960s/ early 1970s and I had a brother in active duty in Vietnam trying to stop the “Domino Effect” of Communism from overtaking the free world.  I believe it was written by an author who specialized in this genre.  The plot was that the United States was being drawn into a war between the then Red China and Soviet Union by both sides that was threatening to become nuclear.  The US President was keeping the nation neutral, until warheads were pointed at the opponent’s shores, MAD was close, and the leaders of both governments were imploring that the United States side with them to turn the tide.  The end of the book never said which country the US supports, but the Soviet leader says something like, “you need to fight on our side – at least we both are of the white race” near the cliffhanger of the novel.

I would love to quote this book in a text book I am writing these many years later, but cannot identify it.  Please help!

299M: Like brightly colored Hummel characters

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I’m looking for a children’s book that was a collection of fairy tales or stories.  My father brought it home to me around the mid 1980’s from one of his trips abroad.  The book was written in English, largish font, and beautifully illustrated.  The pictures stand out the most in my memory, reminding me of brightly colored Hummel characters.  I believe the front cover had a boy and girl on a wagon.  The stories were unique, I’ve never read them anywhere else.  The only bits I can recall is that one story was about a princess or young girl who was picking peaches and either in the same story or a completely different one there were elves or fairies picking leaves of gold and they had to wear special sunglasses to do so.  It was either leaves or apples of gold.

I hope what little information I was able to provide will help you in figuring out what book this was!

 

299L: A girl is given the power to swim underwater

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I cannot remember the title. All I can remember is it was a fantasy book involving a girl who was given the power to swim underwater where she befriended a whale, a dolphin, and it involved rescuing her friends at the bottom of the ocean who were trapped there underneath a bubble. One key character that I remember was a “dimity bird” that was enchanted to move about. Presumably published in the ’60s, early ’70s.