Category Archives: Unsolved

273D: Ethereal Little Mermaid Illustrations

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I’m looking for a Hans Christian Andersen collection of fairy tales from the early 90s. I read it when around 1994-6 but it could have been published a little earlier. I remember it for its Little Mermaid illustrations. They were so beautiful and seemed to glow. Lots of pale mermaids with long blonder hair. Like angels. The pages I remember most are the pictures where the Little Mermaid’s sisters are hoisting each other up out of the sea to hand her a dagger to kill the prince. The last page is the Little Mermaid floating to the sky as an angel after she kills herself to save the prince. It was hardcover and I believe it also had The Princess and the Pea and The Tin Solider stories in it, but I think different illustrators worked on them.

 

Hope this was enough to be helpful. I tried to look up books published in that time frame with Hans Christian Andersen author credits, but couldn’t find a comprehensive list.

273C: Four Corners Young Adult Mystery

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It’s a young adult mystery set in Four Corners area (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona).  A family moves to the Four Corner Area and the teen aged kids get involved with a museum.  The mystery involves oil and artifacts from the area.  The name of the book include the words “Black Gold,” but I’m not sure.  I read the paperback in the later 50s or early 60s.

272I: A girl experiences a ghostly phenomenon

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This was a book my doctor had in his office when I was a kid in the 70s. It was a small paperback about a house that was haunted by children who used to live there–I think there may have been a murder committed that started the haunting, and a little girl who was either living in the house or had visited it who was experiencing the ghostly phenomenon.

272G: Orphaned teen keeps siblings together

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Looking for the titile and author of a young adult fiction book, paperback, published late 1970s or early 1980s, approx. 200 pages.  The book’s title could be similar to “Keeping It All Together.”  The story likely was set in the 1970s to early 1980s, England/United Kingdom or another country using pounds instead of dollars.  I read it around 1983-85.

After a 17 year old girl’s parents die in a auto accident, she toils to keep her orphaned younger siblings together, counting the days until her 18th birthday when she can become their legal guardian.  The story chronicles her struggles to survive with scarce funds and keep her siblings, their school work, home and run-down car from falling apart – all while avoiding the government social services inspector, who threatens to split the siblings up into separate foster homes.

The orphans secretly take care of themselves, while keeping up the appearance that an adult relative is helping them.  Some of the children’s names might be Maggie or Jenny and one of the brothers may have gotten into trouble.  The run-down car they use might be an old van, and the teen girl may have a befriended a young man who assists with auto repairs.

It’s possible the book’s cover art has a soft pastels/watercolor illustration of the family with a light yellow van parked outside their house on a residential street in England or Ireland.

272F: Picture book about pesticides/food chain

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This was a picture book from my childhood (so, early 90s). The kingdom wants to rid itself of some kind of insect (I think), so they spread pesticide or dust which I believe was purple all around. I think everything up the food chain starts getting purple spots, until the princess ends up with a purple spot on her nose and they realize the error of their ways.

272D: Hero has to choose the true object from a room full of copies

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A black and white illustrated children’s book that I read in the 80’s. At one point the hero has to chose the real object hidden amongst a bunch of duplicates. The object may have been a small knight or castle figurine. The hero solves the riddle by asking the various craftsmen who made the copies which one they think is best. The one left over is the true object.  The craftsmen or makers may have been dwarves or some other type of fantasy creature like an elf.

I recall it being a fantasy type setting, possibly medieval and probably had a typical Hero’s Journey type structure to it. The illustrations seemed to be cross hatched or stippled and I’m pretty sure they were in black and white only. The illustrations were large enough to make me think this was a picture book. The book was probably a hardcover and likely in a landscape format.

 

Hope you can help!

272B: Magical gift inhibited by silver in braces

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I’m wondering if you might be able to help me track down a book that my SIL vaguely remembers from her childhood. The main character is surrounded by people who have magical gifts, but he (she?) apparently has no gifts. Then he/she gets his/her braces removed, and it turns out that the silver was inhibiting the magic, and he/she actually does have magical powers.

She read it in the mid-80s, and the fact that there were braces in it leads me to believe that it wasn’t written too much earlier than the 70s or 80s.

 

272A: The Story of Tolah

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The book I’m looking for was lost in house fire and I regret that I had not memorized more about it.

Here’s my best recollection:

“The Story of Tolah” has a female author, and believe it was written in the 50’s.

It was definitely published in Delaware.

So, I don’t know with certainty that I have the title just right (but believe so).

The cover flap had a picture of the author, and she was somewhat elderly then.

Since my mom was a U of Delaware graduate during WWII, and both of my parents went to seminary in Newark, DE in the 40s (maybe 50s) I recall wondering if my parents might have met this woman at some time.

It is a wonderful fiction story, that is effectively a story about making perfume (I didn’t realize women had their own personal scent developed), and also a story of Christ’s anointing before his death.

Tolah was an obedient Jew and he married his lifelong sweetheart and she was a delightful mother of several children including young twin boys.

Tolah loved her passionately and was working on a fragrance for his beloved, and would sneak off to his private little haven where he had his fragrance laboratory (if you will) in a cave near a stream.

Then the story turns very dark, as Herod orders the horrific murder of all young Jewish boys.  Although the family valiantly contrived to save their boys they were found in their hiding place among the sheep wrapped in wool to appear as young lambs, but the mother lamb moved when Herod’s guards came into the pen.

The wife never recovered emotionally, and Tolah plummeted as he was unable to restore his wife’s sanity.

I’ll not continue with the details (Tolah’s dark journey) but say that, as God would have it, much good came from evil.

There is a curse upon anyone that would make a perfume recipe as prescribed and not use for intended sacred purpose, which happened to be the ingredients Tolah used.

The perfume recipe was for exclusive use by the priesthood.

Through the dark journey of poor choices, Tolah’s perfume ended up being payment to a woman that he owed, who in turn anointed Jesus.