Category Archives: Unsolved

344X: Secret Pointe Shoes

3 Replies

I had a flash of a memory of a childhood book.  I have googled and googled but can’t find it, and it is driving me crazy!!!  So here goes the parts I remember:

It was a book about girls, not sure how many, that take ballet classes at a studio which I think was located in a mall or a strip mall.  Rival studio that is fancier is a possibility but more vague memory of that so could be wrong.  One of the girls sees a pair of pointe shoes in the store that are an unusual color, maybe purple?  And she decides she wants to get them and learn how to use them, but she does it in secret because her ballet teacher says she is not at all ready to start with pointe.  There is something that makes her feel like she is less than the other girls and that leads her to use the pointe shoes in secret.  I think she even ruins her feet and ballet progress in the process.  I also want to say that it is a part of a series, either a ballet series or as a ballet focused book in a larger series.  Also very good chance it was a book fair book , I got a lot of books that way.

344W: Young Adults in Frontier America

Leave a reply

I am searching for a young adult adventure series I read in the 70's, although I think the series was several decades old at the time. It was based on the adventures of young adults on the frontier of colonial, American Revolution and Post American Revolution America. Debby Boone was the main character of one book, and she leaves the message "D Boone cilled a bar" carved into a tree after dispatching a bear. Another book had the heir to the French throne being brought up in a cabin in the remote mountains of frontier America. The title of the series was something like "The Young Rifles" or the "Young Frontiersmen". I've never run across the series, but would love to find them.

344V: The Cloud Book

3 Replies

The book I’m looking for was a hardback children’s book with a dark blue, textured cover. It was either square or landscape. I would have read it around 1998-2001, but I don’t know if it was new or second hand at the time. It had illustrations of clouds and a little boy, and I think he may have walked on or slept on the clouds at some point during the story.

Unfortunately I don’t remember many details other than that, and I just called it “the cloud book” so I don’t know the actual title. There are books by that title, but none of the ones I have found match up.

344U: Grumpy Doll in Dollhouse

3 Replies

• children’s book read in 2006-2011. Could have been quite old by then
• a new doll came to live in the doll house and didn’t trust the human caring for them, she stole things like a coin and a piece of hair to try and cast a spell on them
• the human returned from a trip and gave the doll something nice like a new rug or bed spread and it made the doll realize she was wanted and loved
• this was a traditional dollhouse – old and beautiful. The human was fixing it up and making it nice again. She was very thoughtful towards the dolls.
• this is not The Dolls’ House by Rumer Godden
• might have had a pink cover. It was a chapter book but not very lengthy

344T: Children’s book from early 70s

1 Reply

I remember a book with very simple line drawings. I only remember the first line: “When Nora(h) was six years old, her parents decided to let her go” and a drawing of the parent holding on to Nora’s foot as she floated away to her adventures.
I read it at my friend’s house when I was about six or seven so mid-1970’s.


Anything you can do to help me hunt it down is much appreciated!

344S: Boy with a Magic Pencil?

3 Replies

I recall a young adult chapter book from my youth (late 1970s-early 1980s) about a boy with a magic pencil. It is used like a regular pencil, but it might have been blue lead. Like a regular pencil, it needs to be sharpened, and gets slightly smaller each time. I can’t recall the things he made or did with it. Some dramatic emergency with the last bit of pencil.  Apologies but that’s all I remember.

344R: Historical American romance pregnant heroine with amnesia

Leave a reply

I read this book as a teenager in the early 1990s.  It was a paperback, but I don’t think it was a Harlequin.

Hero                     

  • An American soldier/person of importance

 Heroine

  • An American from an upstanding family who were sympathetic to the plight of the Native American Indians

 Location

  • America

 Era         

  • During a war – not sure which one, but it involved Native American Indians

 Main plot                           

  • Hero and heroine marry in a traditional Native American Indian ceremony.
  • Heroine is given a necklace with a carved wooden charm (I think a turtle) in lieu of a wedding ring.
  • Heroine is kidnapped on her wedding night.  She suffers a head injury and gets amnesia and finds out she is pregnant while imprisoned.
  • The hero finds her, but she does not recognise him.
  • The hero claims her and they are married in a traditional Christian ceremony.
  • Heroine gives birth to their child – a girl  – and regains her memory.

 Other plot twists

  • Heroine’s brother is fighting in the war.  He secretly marries a Native American Indian known to the family.  Heroine’s brother is killed in the war, and his wife dies in childbirth, and the heroine cares for their child – a son named Andrew (I think) after his father (the heroine’s brother).
  • One particularly gruesome scene where a preacher is tortured and burned.

344Q: Fruit and Vegetable Creations to Entice Reluctant Child

Leave a reply
I am looking for a children’s book from the 1980s/90s era about a young boy left at home with a babysitter. He hates eating anything healthy and complains about the sitter wanting him to eat apples, carrots, etc until she shows him that you can make it fun and create animals and other creatures with the fruits and veggies. The back of the book had photos and instructions for making your own creations.

344P: Red Haired Princess Must Kill Mother With Ceremonial Dagger

2 Replies

I’m searching for the title of a young adult fantasy book about a Celtic princess with red hair, who in order to become queen must kill her mother with a their ceremonial dagger, according to their tradition. I thought the title was QUEEN’S BLADE or WITCH'S BLADE, but I haven’t had any luck locating the book. I also think the princess had a Roman father. Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

344O: Children’s picture book about girl who dances with shadows

1 Reply

Looking for a children’s picture book about a girl who lives in a village (likely indigenous, maybe based on cliff dwellers?). The villagers see scary shadows on the walls of the cliff they live at the bottom of and thinks they are monsters. Eventually the girl climbs to the top of the cliff (maybe with a grass? ladder) and discovers that the shadows weren’t monsters, but friendly (people or animals, can’t remember.) I read this book as a kid around 2000, my grandparents had bought it, so likely published between like 1990 and early 2000s. They’d traveled to Australia and American Southwest, and I think book was purchased one of those places. It was a hardcover with full color illustrations. Tried googling key words but can’t find it so far, help!