I read this book when I was in high school(1964-1967). It was about a boy who worked at a boat moorage/marina on Lake Okeechobee. I don’t recall it being a very thick book. I’m pretty sure it was a fiction book. I can’t seem to find it. Thanks
I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me find a picture book from my childhood that I have been searching for for years. My mum borrowed it from our local library (in Victoria, Australia) sometime in the 90s, perhaps any time from 1997 onwards. It was a dark (both in theme and illustration style) picture book with detailed illustrations similar to those of Gary Crew’s The Watertower. I think it was designed for older readers (8-12 years). I used to think the title was Is Any Body There?, but I’ve searched so many libraries, bookstores and databases for it that I must have got the title wrong.
In the book, the protagonist is walking through different landscapes that have recently been destroyed by something or someone. The protagonist walks into the woods and says “Is any body there?” (or something along those lines). The wood’s inhabitants reply something like “Yes, somebody was here”, and the trees say something like “It took our branches”. I think other animals in the woodland also said that they had parts stolen from them, but I can only remember the trees.
The protagonist continues journeying and reaches a lake, where they also say, “Is any body there?”. The inhabitants of the lake also respond “Yes, somebody was here”, and say that something stole their body parts too. I can only remember the fish saying “It stole our eyes”. The illustrations very vividly depicted the fish under the water, with empty eye sockets.
The protagonist follows the trail of destruction through several other landscapes (sorry, I can’t remember them) and arrives at a house in a forest (I think). The protagonist makes their way to the basement, where they say for the final time, “Is any body there?”. A response comes from the darkness: “Yes, some body is here”. On the final page, there is a detailed illustration of a monster that is clearly constructed from all of the parts stolen from the animals, trees and environments.
The illustrations were in dark, earthy shades and I think it’s possible that the narration was either first- or second-person to heighten the immersion, but I can’t remember much more about the book than that. I’ve spoken to several librarians (including one who worked at the library we borrowed the book from originally) and booksellers, and no one knows of this book. Only my sister remembers it, otherwise I would have thought I’d fabricated it entirely.
Any help in solving this would be very, very much appreciated – this mystery has been annoying me for too long!
Many thanks,
This is a children’s book from the late 30s or 40s about four mockingbirds who did not sing/have voices. The other birds felt bad for them and gave them their songs.
I read this book in the late 70’s on tape, so no cover detail is available. April is a teenager learning to cope with her mother’s mental illness.
This book (which seemed old when my grandmother read it to me in the 1960’s) was about a little boy who had a bag of cookies that he gave away one-by-one on his walk home leaving one for himself when he arrived home. I’m confident the postman got one.
The story is about a world where one’s wealth is measured by the amount of words he has in life, which are limited. A boy and a girl are in love and in the end when he kisses her she has only one word left and says: More.
I’m looking for a book I started to read in the late 70’s about a girl (maybe called Margaret) and an older boy. He writes her a letter saying that he cares for her, but will wait until she grows up. She may be in high school and he’s in college?
The only details I remember are that it was about a brother and sister and it was someone’s birthday. They baked a cake for the birthday which I believe was a train cake.
For context, I was born in 1985 and I think the book was probably published in the 70s/80s.
It was a young person’s book which I read when I was 10 or 12 years old in Canada. It would have been in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s when I found it in our school library. It was set in the Southern USA and I think that the period was shortly after WWII. The book was the story of a boy that was staying with a family in a big old rural home. There was something about hunting raccoons at night with dogs. I think there was actually quite a bit about the dogs and something sad happened to one of them. There was something about hearing trains running in the distance at night. There was something sad associated with this (maybe to do with the dogs?). The family had a black (I think) cook with whom the boy spent considerable time. She was rather nurturing. And a WWII vet who was rather troubled would come to the back/kitchen door and she would give him food. I think that the boy was afraid of him. My recollection is that it was a rather haunting, sentimental, sad and yet hopeful story. I think that the boy was trying to determine how he fit into the world.
Read this in 1993. From what I remember of the paperback cover, it was likely published in the 1970s, but possibly 1980s. A futuristic society records their citizens’ dreams (through their pillows?) and if your number is announced that means your dream will be broadcast to the entire community the next morning. If your dream is somehow controversial or doesn’t fall in line with community standards and teachings, you may be sent for reeducation/punishment. An adolescent/young teenage girl is the narrator. She is super concerned her crush may be revealed in her dreams. It was less than 200 pages. Probably intended for a young adult audience, but couldn’t say for sure.