Category Archives: Unsolved

367V: Kids survive by foraging on beach

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I was born in 1987 so most likely this book was read to me around 1992 or 1993. It was a paper back, chapter book. It did not have pictures. I would guess it was a YA novel. There were kids, possibly sisters, in the story who have to fend for themselves while living without grown ups in a beach house. To survive they collect snails or cockles from the beach and learn how to cook them. It might be that they ran away from home or were abandoned by the adults. I don’t recall the rest of the context. There may have been an old telephone in the house which they were trying to fix to get in touch with someone. It was a little bit scary to me but mostly exciting. The book was super engaging to me – I loved books about wilderness survival and foraging for food, such as My Side of the Mountain. I loved the idea that they had to live off the land around them and the ocean.

367T: Fantasy creatures sing boy to sleep, get stolen, then rescued

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I am looking for a children’s picture book from the late 1970s, early 1980s. The book was on natural/beige paper with brown line drawings. The story was a fantasy where a young boy lives in a small cottage. Every night, flying creatures (birds? harpy-like things?) fly over his home and sing him to sleep. Possibly as the sun sets. They sing the same song every night. The lyrics were along the lines of “Remember my friend of the song of your heart. Remember my friend, for the rest of your life. Love conquers all, for it never grows dim. Love conquers all, for all time”. The book came with a cassette tape and my siblings and I could probably hum the song to this day. One night, the bird things don’t come and sing. The boy gets worried. He hears knocking at his door or window. It is a talking animal or non-human of some sort. He hears that the local monster thing that lives in a cave or mountain through the woods has stolen the bird things and plans to eat them and/or make them sing only for him. The boy says, “We must get them back. We must!”. The boy climbs on the back of a horse or four-legged animal and they race through the woods to the cave/mountain. The boy sneaks into the cave where the bird things are in cages. He releases them somehow and they escape. Not sure what happens to the monster thing. The book ends as the bird things once again fly over his house and sing him to sleep. I want to say that the monster thing is a Gorgon but I’ve maybe conflated Greek myths later on with this early fantasy children’s book. Or, it is a really well known adaptation and this will be an easy solve.

367S: Falling for the Prince of Fae

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Contested Fae Romance YA fantasy novel I read in library between 1994 and 2000. Protagonist girl falls for cold and intriguing guy (maybe named Percival? Parsifal?), finds out he’s the prince of Fae and his mother does not consent to their relationship. At some point mortal protagonist saves him or the mother AND him from iron-related trap, thus earning her respect. Cover had small pointy leaves on left side.

367R: The Odd Fae Child

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I read this book about 20+ years ago when I was Junior High in the US. It was about this guy who fell in love with a woman from a fae race I believe? I honestly don’t remember that much about it except I think the cover had some art but was green in binding. They had some sort of huge struggle with a type of villain and they ended up together and pregnant. He thought it would be a normal 9 month pregnant like for humans and her race actually had a 3 year gestation. Their baby was a girl who was very different and inquisitive and wasn’t a normal human child. That’s essentially all I remember. If you could help me find it, I would appreciate it!

367Q: Old SF story I am seeking

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I probably read it sometime before 1970, but I might be lying.
I don’t remember if it’s a short story or an episode in a novel.
It involves a small crew of some sort of exploration or trading vessel.
They land on a planet that lacks space travel but does have powerful artillery and clever control stuff.
At a key point in the plot one member of the crew, a small creature who can jump far and fast, is hiding outside the ship.
The locals have the ship surrounded and have pointed an artillery piece at the main port.
The shells are not powerful enough to damage the exterior of the ship, but if they open the door even for a fraction of a second, they will get hit with a shell.
Finally they decide to chance having the outside guy jump through the air toward the door.  The control computer opens the portal just long enough for the guy to fly through.
Sadly, the artillery shell that is automatically fired when the port is seen to open gets through the door.
It destroys the (sentient) computer that controls the ship.
In the milliseconds before it is destroyed, however, the main computer downloads a route “home” into the “idiot” nav computer so that they can get away and get home.
They mourn the dead computer.
The lesson I took from it is how human-centric my intuition about response time is and how really fast computers are.
My vague recollection is that the author was Poul Anderson and it involved a small (fiveish?) crew of humans and non-humans that adventure around.  It may be one of the Technic Civilization stories, but it might not.

367P: Victorian Dolls Get Beautiful New Clothes

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I have been trying for a long time to remember the name of a book I loved as a child in the 1960s or very early 70s. In the book, Victorian-era dolls were outfitted with beautiful new clothes, shoes, and in one case, a muff. There was velvet involved, and the descriptions of the clothing and care the dolls received were beautiful (at least in my child’s mind). The dolls’ hair was fixed up as well. The colors of the clothing were rich. One of the dolls was a boy. The central character of the story was a little girl. There may have been a shop window or house with windows on the cover, but I have looked at so many books in trying to identify this one that I could be confusing this! It is also possible that this was a chapter book or series in which a particular doll needed to be repaired, as I recall multiple dolls with various problems that needed attention, and each was treated individuallly.

367N: Daily Life Throughout the Ages

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Looking for a children’s book where we’re led through multiple illustrated time periods where there are drawings of people – cave people with labeled tools and clothing, all the way to Greek and Roman, then Versailles where they talk about beauty marks. Lots of how-to pieces like how to make a drawstring pouch or a beauty mark, primarily focused on clothing but also pets or habits.

367K: Pebble removed from horse hoof grows and explodes

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The main character is a young girl, moody, sent to live with a family member (possibly aunt and cousin). She’s a bit of a troublemaker and/or lies a lot. – She sits on a fence outside and sees an old lame mare in the field. A man (named Joe, says “Aye” a lot) who owns the horse chats to the girl and gets a pebble out of the horse’s hoof to stop her lameness. – The girl likes this unusual pebble and keeps it on the windowsill in her room because the light hits it nicely. – The pebble grows and eventually falls off the windowsill. – It gets so big she and the other girl (her cousin?) have to lump it into a wheelbarrow and get it away from the house, where it tips the barrow and eventually explodes into many pebbles. Read between 1990 – 2005 in the UK.