I read this book as a teen in the early 1970s. It had a typical teen book dust jacket design from the 70s: pen/watercolor painting of profile of boy with blue hair (I think) and I have a memory that it was called “The Blue Boy” or something similar but all searches have turned up nothing appropriate.
Anyway, this memory is decades old, but what I recall is that this teen boy (probably orphan? no parents present in the story that I can recall) is somehow involved with a gang of bad people. Perhaps boy has magical abilities that they are taking advantage of for ill-gotten gains? Perhaps boy has blue hair as a gimmick? Maybe there is no blue hair but I swear there was. In any event, boy decides to escape from his situation and is pursued by bad guys who want to recapture? kill? otherwise cause problems for him. Boy is on the lam and has an unexpected mysterious ally who brings him food and perhaps finds him safe spaces to live. In my memory this ally is a talking mongoose, but crikey, how does this narrative even make sense? The boy is astonished to get ripe mangoes when in his world (the world of our narrative), mangoes are still green and unripe; months and months away from ripeness. It turns out this ally is from a parallel world, and the book ends with the ally helping our boy escape his pursuers by moving to the parallel universe. In my memory, book ends with boy on a sunrise-shining beach in this parallel world.
I read it in English, but nothing about the story seems to be set in North America (mongoose and mangoes, or at least mangoes even if the mongoose is a figment of my imagination or faulty memory).
Category Archives: Teen
370M: Crossing the state on foot
Teenage girl somehow loses family in big city, sets off to relative’s home in another state on foot sleeping in barns, scraping together coins for food along the journey. Read in the late 60’s early 70’s school library.
370H: 80’s teen book about a girl going through some stuff (Solved!)
Hello! God help me, I cannot remember this book for the life of me, but I read it all the time back in middle school!
It was a teen book about a girl who ate marshmallow fluff sandwiches and her father had a girlfriend Miriam, who owned a clothing boutique called Miriam’s Magic, I think. That’s all I remember. Help!
370C: Mexican beaches in a jalopy – early 1940s
An American couple explores the beaches and coastal towns of the west coast of Mexico driving a jalopy. The story ends with the start of WWII, compelling them to return to the States. I read this as a kid in the mid-1960s. I’m not sure whether it was intended for young adults or grown-ups, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
367U: Fiction book by male (Norwegian?) author….like (something) ….gåard..
From ? library in the United States. Red hardback cover…no jacket. College or high school kids on trip get lost underground/in caves and encounter literal demons…i.e. red skinned….within vast huge cavern…lava hot.
367L: Late ‘80s Teen Romance – Ghost (Solved!)
Teen romance set in an old mill converted into offices. Girl has after-school job as evening receptionist/secretary. Meets boy she thinks works there but turns out he is a ghost. Set in Autumn/Winter in eastern US (PA? New England?) small town.
365W: 1970s(?) book about kid spies
I am looking for a book that is a children/tween/teen book from the 60’s or 70’s (I borrowed it from the Bookmobile in the very early 80’s) about 3 or 4 teenagers who fly a glider and get involved in a spy plot where an organization (maybe called Chaos or similar acronym) with a plan to put a memory drug into the water supply. Originally they are set astray by misinformation that it is going into the milk supply. I think one boy is super athletic and one is the brainy one. There is one part where they fly the glider over a compound and later break in. It is guarded by a lion that has been fed the drug and doesn’t attack them but is reliving a memory. It turns out the parents of one of the kids are actually spies and assist them in the end.
365N: Teen or young adult book about a boy runner in a fictional foreign country
I recorded this book for our local Library several years ago, but it seems to have disappeared. The main character is a teenage boy. He lives with his father who publishes an underground newspaper articles about life in this country and sends them out to his daughter who is a college student in “Freelandia” (I think that is the name assigned to what is the USA.) In the country where the boy lives, one route to escaping poverty is success as a runner, but first he needs shoes good enough to train. There is a group of runners who use a training route preparing for competition, and he is singled out from this group by an older man, apparently one who is a member of some sort of crime syndicate, who will give him money for the shoes in advance, but basically own his soul going forward.
The boy wants to win the race in order to escape the country, which sounds a lot like Cuba or Venezuela. The plot involves danger, maybe murder of his family, danger to his sister, and finally he finds help from a librarian.
364V: Girl in Black Not Interested in Bucky
I am looking for a 90s or 80s book where a teen is writing an advice column for school and no one knows she is the one giving advice. She receives a letter about one of her best friends who dresses almost always in black from a boy (Bucky??) who likes the friend. She is conflicted about the advice to give because she would tell someone else to go for it but she knows her friend would not be interested.
363T: Undercover Officer Wants to Bust College Drug Ring, Poses as Student
I read the book I’m looking for as a young teen or pre-teen. 15-20 years ago. I believe it was YA because it was in my school library but the subject matter was more adult. There was a girl in her teens, attending a pre-college program or a school program of some kind but I believe it took place at a college. There was an undercover officer in it posing as a student and became close/friends with the main character. There was some kind of drug ring happening at the school that was being investigated. The cover of the book or back cover of the book had a window on it I think?