From the 1980s/early 1990s – a young adult series (5 or 6 books, I think?) about a teenage girl who gets a tennis scholarship; either to a school or an academy. I think she is American and the school is in England… was on the same shelf as Sweet Valley High, etc. Would appreciate any help.
Little girl goes to a carnival or fair, has the best day and comes home with a balloon. Read to me a lot in the late 70’s/early 80’s.
I am looking for a blue paperback yearling book that was published between 1980 and 1984. The book is about a girl (possibly named Adelaide) who lives with her spinster aunts in a big old house. She and the house girl go up in the attic and find a trunk belonging to the girl’s dead mother and there they unravel the mysteries of the mother’s past. Throughout the book, the main character has memories or possibly fantasies about her mother’s life.
The cover was blue with a picture of two girls in an attic. One girl was caucasian with black hair and a dress. The other girl was African American and and had some type of kerchief in her hair.
I am searching for a children’s book (a picture book) about an old woman who, with the assistance of a handyman, lives in a cottage by the sea, learns to swim, to make an omelette, etc. I do not know the title or author (obviously), but it is similar in tone to “Miss. Rumphius (aka the Lupine Lady).”
Fantasy novel, published between 1980 and 1995. Possibly Young Adult novel.
The main character is a glassblower who has the ability to control animals by making special glass that is the precise colour of their eyes.
I read this story in a book of either just cat or animal short stories. I think they all had magic involved.
A witch tried a spell that backfired and trapped her in her own house, sitting staring at the fire. Years later the house was rented by a nice young woman who could sort of see the witch and treated her politely-offered her tea. The witch’s orange tabby was still around and got killed defending the young woman from the witch’s nefarious nephew. Some visitor came up later-obviously to be the boyfriend and he’d found the reincarnation of the orange tabby. The witch smiles as she fades away (I think) released. Nefarious nephew (or some relation) defeated. Written in late 90s maybe?
Anyone remember this story and what book it’s in? Any help appreciated. Thanks!!!
I read a book when I was around 10 or 11 so around 1997 that has a female protagnist who mentions the poets rossetti. I *think* she and her brother may have been named after them.
These were actually two youth novels I read as a kid, but I only need to find one to find the other, unfortunately I only remember enough detail from both books. They were a series involving a young boy who discovers that there is a world or dimension where all the things you lost wind up. For example, if you just misplaced your keys, it was because they actually wound up in this world, and they would be sent back, but usually ended up in a different place in our world. The world there is filled with lost junk.
I believe the title of the first book was just the name of this place “Other World” or something like it. I remember that at the end of the first book, he needs to send the world a milk carton. When he hears his mother say out loud that she can’t find her keys and she had just left them on the counter, he throws the milk carton at the spot where the keys were and the carton disappears into the other world. In fact, I think the cover of the novel had a floating milk carton with milk spilling out of it as if it were in space or something.
If it helps, in the sequel, he winds up back there, but with his annoying little brother, who likes carrying things in his pocket. There was something where a giant clock of some sort runs the entire dimension and without a stuffed bird that sits in a cuckoo nest in the clock, the clock won’t run and the world is doomed. In the end, he remembers that his little brother said the stuffed bird felt the same in his pocket as his favorite golf ball/putt putt ball, so the protagonist saves the day by putting a golf ball in the cuckoo’s nest.
This book was a children’s illustrated book I never was able to finish as a child because I was pulled away from the store as I was finishing. It seemed to have realistic (rather than cartoony) full page painted illustrations and was a wide, landscape book. The story was about two brothers who grew up and got married. One brother was successful and rich and the other was poor. The poor brother would go to his brother to beg for things they needed, and the rich brother would ask him for increasingly difficult payments in return for meager returns. At one point, the brother asks for food for him and his starving wife and the rich brother demands one of his eyes as payment and gives him a moldy piece of bread in return. I think in another exchange, he begs for fire or light, and receives a pithy little candle stub. I wasn’t able to finish the story, but from what I recall, I think the poor brother eventually gives up both of his eyes, but at some point, an angel appears before both brothers and its glory is so bright that the rich brother is blinded, but the poor brother is spared because he cannot see (perhaps he regains his sight?). If I remember correctly, the scene in which the rich brother is blinded showed him covering his eyes from the bright light. It gave me a feeling of being a holiday or Christmas book, much like The Little Match Girl, but that could have been because of the angel, or a time when the poor brother and his wife were freezing in cold weather.
I don’t know the title, but I only recall as a child thinking that the business with taking eyes was a bit mature/dark for a children’s picture book.
looking for a children’s book prior to 1982 about a girl who finds an overgrown garden and I think the statues come alive. It is not The Secret Garden.