Category Archives: Unsolved

280A: Book about strange, quirky school

5 Replies

I’ve been trying to remember the details on this one for years, and can’t pull enough out to find it.

It’s a young adult book I read several times growing up, always taking it out of the library. It was stocked in the first shelf of the Young Adult section, which means the author was somewhere between A and maybe N, I think.

The cover had, in the top left corner, a boy standing on the edge of the school roof, with wings or a parachute or contraption of some kind. Down below were two boys looking up at him, possibly waving their arms or shouting at him not to jump.

The boy on the school roof wasn’t one of the main characters, though, just an oddball who was part of the local color of the school. The main character had just arrived at a very odd boarding(?) school, where many of the kids were quirky. I believe he found someone kind of normal already there to take him under his wing.

 

That’s all I remember.

279I: Boy builds robots that become autonomous

3 Replies

Early- to mid-1970’s: A boy builds robots in a non-urban area. A lightning strike makes them autonomous. At the end of the book, he tells them to “stop rowing for a minute. ” They take the instruction literally and, 60 seconds later, row away, never to be seen again. IIRC the book had some insignia on its paperback cover saying that it had won some sort of literary award.

279H: Houses that gossip amongst themselves at night

Leave a reply

This is the children’s picture book I am looking for:

Circa 1940s +/- a decade

Pictures are, I think, in water color

Colors are dark and muted as it is night time

Story has to do with houses that – at night – gossip among themselves

Pictures show mouths and eyes and expressions on the fronts of the houses

Some of the houses are very proud and snooty to other houses

That’s all I remember.

279F: 1970s Kids Detective Book

4 Replies

This was a series of books that I read between 1975 and 1981 (I think).  Each book featured 20 or so stories (2-6 pages long) of a super sleuth who solved a mystery, that invited you to figure out how he solved it.  Answers were in the back of the book.   The lead detective was a “Dr.” and he had a sidekick who narrated, and were set in England.

Thank You!

279D: A girl, a ghost and a kitten

2 Replies

I’m looking for a older child/young adult book.  It is set in earlier times, though I can’t recall for certain if it was as far back as Victorian.  A young girl goes to live with an older, severe relative.  She has a hard life but is befriended by a small grey kitten and a mysterious girl who is a ghost.  The ghost gives the girl clues to the cause of her unrest  The girl refers to the kitten as “gray one” or “little gray one”.

279B: Bunnies go on an Easter Egg hunt

3 Replies

Hi there! I’m looking for a book my mother used to read to my sister and I as children. It was about bunnies that go on an Easter egg hunt. The book may have come in different sizes, but this particular book was only about 5×5?  The cover was mostly white, I believe and had pictures of bunnies and grass and eggs hiding.  The book didn’t have bright colors. It was mostly pastels. I believe it was geared toward younger children, but we loved when our mother read it to us!! Please help me find this book!

278D: Halloween story featuring a new teacher

12 Replies

I have been searching for this book for so long with no luck.  Unfortunately, I don’t remember the title.

I got it when I was in elementary school in the 1970’s.  It was probably published early to mid 70’s.  I got it through one of the school’s reading program catalogs, so it may be a Scholastic book or another company like that.  My best friend and several other students also purchased it.  It was a Halloween book.  It was about school students who have a young, pretty new teacher come to their school.  Her name was Miss – something.  Maybe Miss Grey.  (I don’t trust my memory that far though.)  The students think there is something odd about her.  She wears a big, wide-brimmed hat.  Of course, she’s suspected of being a witch.

The book was a thin paperback.  The illustrations were pencil drawings in black and white.  That’s about all I’ve got on it.  It was such an unusual story and I’ve never seen the book again.  Wish I knew where my copy got off to.  Probably gave it away when I felt I was too old for children’s stories…  geez…

 

When I search online, the later 80’s series about “Miss Nelson” pops up, but that is not it.

 

Thank you for your time!

278A: Rocket Club but not the Rocket Boys

7 Replies

This is a book written in the 60’s about a group of boys who have a rocket club which meets on the farm of an old army general.

They design various rockets, and at one point there is an accident because two of the boys decide to include dangerous design changes.  I think they eventually get a trip to see a launch in Florida.  This is NOT Hickman’s “Rocket Boys” or “October Sky”.  It is also not “Countdown to Zero”.

276F: Scuba diving adventures

4 Replies

Juvenile fiction from late 1960s or early 1970s with color illustrations of a teen boy and his father/uncle and their adventures scuba diving. I worked in the school library when I was 13-14 and was fascinated by this book, which piqued my interest in oceanography. I’ve searched on and off for many years. It’s not Sea Hunt and it’s not a Hardy Boys book. Any help locating a copy of this book would be much appreciated.