Published early 20th centurt
Setting – NE mill town, manufacturing thread
Plot ?? Cain and Abel, Prodigal son
Protagonists—–brothers, Ira and Myron
294W: Black Thread Center
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Category Archives: Unsolved
294V: A locomotive in my living room
A children’s book my parents read to me in the 1950s, about a family and a model train that somehow gets out of hand. At one point the mother comes into the room and demands:
“To whom am I to be grateful, to whom,
For a locomotive in my living room?”
I have no idea whether or not the rest of the book rhymed, or what its title was, but that couplet has been in my head for approximately 60 years.
294U: An orthodox home in South Africa
I read this book in South Africa as a setwork book in the 70s . I’m sure it was in Afrikaans about a young girl growing up in a very orthodox home, never saw a picture of herself until late teens. She falls pregnant to either a young traveling salesman or her father, I cant remember the fine details but she somehow gets away, with the young man I think.
294T: The Six
This book I read in 1984 and was a collection of six stories of a British youth gang; each story focused on a different member of the gang. One character may have been called Darkie Bates. One of the six stories took place in a disco where the gang member was ‘saved’ by the friend of a girl he had earlier been insulting with terms like “frog-eyes”, when she hit his assailant with a bottle. He ended up going out with her. The author may have been Tony someone but just as likely not. Great book for young adult fiction.
294S: She went back in time and fell in love
I was looking for a book I read in my teens (read sometime between 1990-1995) about a girl who was half American Indian. She spent time in the woods behind her grandmother’s house and went back in time and fell in love with a Native American boy at a time where they were being sent down the Trail of Tears. That is all I can remember about it.
294Q: Time travel in red
A book read in the 1970s – then in paperback – set in New York City about 1870 – on the upper East Side, perhaps 58th Street, near Bloomingdale’s Department Store. The first chapter opens with a crime committed on the block. It might have been winter time – not sure. It might have been a murder or it might have been some other type of crime on a person. Chapter two describes a similar crime. Same block. But 100 years later – now in the present period. Thereafter each chapter alternates the time periods – 100 years earlier, then the current period. Subsequent action took place on or around the same city block in New York. The “aha” moment came close to the end of the book when the connection was made between the two time periods. The word “Red” may have been part of the title but Google and other searches on “Red” and time warp or time shift or time travel have not revealed the title.
294P: Biting the beaver was the battle plan
I was born in 1943 and remember a children’s book about a pond. The pond was home to many animals – rabbits, frogs, fish, badgers, etc. But it also was one to a wicked beaver who wanted to destroy the pond. All the animals had to get together to defeat the beaver and save their pond. Of course they were successful. I remember something about the bees swarming and biting the beaver mercilessly as part of their battle plan. And it worked.
294O: Hans of Luck
I was hoping you could give me some information on a short story I read probably 46 years ago.
The story is about a young Hessian soldier who is captured during the American Revolution after the battle of Bennington in 1777. His captors, Vermont militiamen, have orders to kill any prisoners, but they wind up sparing him and one brings him back to his farm.
I think they story is titled either “Hans of Luck” or “Lucky Hans.” “Hans” may also be spelled “Hons.” I read this story in the 1970s.
294N: Boy with Toy Boat in Central Park
I’m searching for a children’s chapter book that I read and loved when I was about 10 or 11 in the early 1970s. All I remember about it is that it was about a boy who lived in an apartment building near Central Park, and in the afternoons he and an older man (perhaps his grandfather?) would sail his toy boat in Central Park. (I’m not thinking of Stuart Little!) I think the apartment doorman might have been a character as well. My guess is that the book was written sometime in the mid-1960s.
294K: Cut-out model airplanes
I do not know the title or author of this book. The cut-out “book” came out sometime around 1940-1945, I believe. It was about 8 1/2″ by 11″, possibly bigger, and perhaps 3/8″ thick. The book contained cut-out WWII era airplanes in full color, perhaps two pagers per plane. When assembled they had a 3D presentation e.g. the fuselages were cylindrical and the wings’ surfaces were curved. They were not intended to be “flown” like a glider. They were surprisingly realistic when assembled.