Category Archives: Unsolved

353Z: Children’s Book with a red cover about a flying bunny

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It’s a children’s book for about 3rd or 4th graders.  It’s thin, but it is a chapter book.  The paperback version cover has a little girl on it with short hair and it’s red and yellow.  The girl’s name might be in the title and is possibly Sally.  She finds a bunny (pretty sure it’s a bunny) with wings and there may or may not be a circus. The book was older.  She knows it from the early 1990’s, but it had like a 40’s or 50’s art style with simple line drawings with water colors.  I saw some Golden Books that seemed promising, but she said those were all too young.
I’ve tried the below books and none of them were int.
The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes
Lettice
Pookie
Operation Bunny
Felix and the Flying Suitcase
The Little Rabbit who Wanted Red Wings
My Little Rabbit Tale
Reader Rabbit
Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present

353X: Child gives last ration of chocolate away

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This was a book I read in the 70s, but it might have been written anytime after WWII and it had a certain 50s or 60s vibe to it.
I am pretty sure it took place during WWII and was set somewhere in Europe.
I recall the character — a boy (I think) of around 12 — had a couple squares of his chocolate ration left. He was very hungry and they didn’t have much food, but he gave his ration away to another child — I think a girl, around the same age.
For the longest time I thought it was from Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan but I tracked down that book and read it to my son and there is no such scene.

353W: Hoaxes and Frauds Collection for Kids

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I am looking for a book I got in a school book order around 1978-1983, either Scholastic or the other one (Troll, was it?) It was a collection of short accounts of historical hoaxes, like the Piltdown Man, the Cardiff Giant, the War of the Worlds radio broadcast, the New York Sun reports of life on the moon — I think it even had Howard Hughes’s autobiography. I have searched library catalogs and Ebay for “Hoaxes and Frauds,” but I see a book that is far too recent for me to have bought it in elementary school.

353T: Teen girl road trips with grandma & kidnappers

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The book I’m seeking was written in the 1960s or 70s.  A young lady (probably a teenager) was going on a cross-country road trip with her grandmother.  They were to meet up with her boyfriend coming from the other direction.  The girl drove, not the grandmother.  They each put colorful pieces of material on their antennae so they could spot each other on the road.  At some point, the ladies decided to give a ride to hitchhikers who ended up ‘hijacking’ them and holding them hostage as they drove for days.  Eventually, all turned out well and they met up with the boyfriend.

353S: Dad Makes Funny Faces to Get Daughter to Sleep

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The kid’s book I’m looking for was something my dad read to me in the 1980s. (I don’t know the vintage of the book. It could be from before the ’80s.)
The book is about a dad making various funny faces with his daughter before she goes to sleep. I seem to recall that the last page shows just their eyes in the dark.
Please help me find it!

353Q: Doppelgangers With Magic Powers

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My book stumper is 2 books I’m pretty sure are in the same series. Both feature a main character who meets her doppelganger who has magic powers. In one they are at the pool in the summer and the main girl is afraid to jump off the high dive. In the other they are at the girls middle school and she wishes to fit in. She ends up making her own trends that catch on where people wear gypsy skirts with tank tops and padlocks on their belts. I’ve googled everything I can.

353P: YA Novel About Mysterious Man With the Circus

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The book I would love to find again is a young-adult novel about a mysterious man that comes to a town with a carnival or circus. I know it sounds like Something Wicked This Way Comes, but it’s not. It is actually so similar to that plot, that it’s pretty much a ripoff. I don’t remember anything else about the book except that the cover was creepy and dark, possibly with a chalk-like drawing on it. I read this one probably around 1987 or 1988. It was a hardcover book and pretty long, at least for me at the time.

353O: Dragons Galore

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I’m looking for a kids book about dragons. I don’t remember much, but it was heavily illustrated with all kinds of different types of dragons. It read more like non-fiction, sort of like a simple encyclopedia of various types of dragons. I remember one dragon, in particular, that looked like a snake. I don’t think it had any sort of plot. It was a hardcover and was laid out in a landscape, rather than portrait manner. I was in 4th and 5th grade when I checked it out of the library about 1000 times. That was around 1985-1986.

353M: Circus Boy Rescues Chinese Girl, Witch Heals Her Bound Feet

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Looking for a children's fantasy novel about a poor boy working at a circus who rescues a Chinese girl with bound feet who's a prisoner in one of the attractions. Takes place in medieval Europe, I think. They're on the run and get rescued by a witch or an old woman who heals the girl's feet by breaking the bones and then teaches her how to walk again. The boy and the girl go on a quest together. There may be a dragon involved. Wasn't a picture book and it had chapters. Read it between 2002 and 2008, but was probably published way earlier. Wish I had more info, thanks!