Category Archives: Teen

343V: Ellen, Haggis, Scottish Traditions in America


A teen girl whose family has died is sent to live with relatives (maiden aunts?) in a part of the United States that still follows more Scottish customs than American customs, including holidays, and she experiences major culture shock.  I believe the title character is named Ellen.  The cover shows her at the door wearing a shift mini-dress, so the novel probably was written in the late 1960s or early 1970s.  This novel is the first time I encountered the word “haggis.”

340S: Boy meets crows on a chessboard

Seeking a children's/teen book I read in the 90's, the central character is a boy who went to a pond/lake when he was told not to and developed warts on his hands as a result. These are cured by a magician? in an early scene, a friend of his father maybe? I only remember two more scenes, one in which he remembers trying to pull a wart from his skin, and another in which he dreams? of a giant chessboard. The white pieces are standard king, queen, knights etc, but all of the black pieces are crows. Crows and chess pieces were a recurring image in the book, but I don't remember what purpose they served. Thanks to anyone who helps with this, it's stumped me for years!

340E: Girl moves to beach town (Solved!)

It's a book about a teenage girl who meets an anonymous boy online. They become close and she happens to move to where he lives without telling him. She moves to the beach town with her dad (I think her mom died and was a surfer). She starts working at a museum with a boy she doesn't like but things start to click and she begins to wonder if he's the mystery online boy. She had never told him that she moved to his hometown. She wanted to figure out who he was before revealing herself.

339Y: YA Girl falls in love with military guy

Genre Teen/YA? Military Romance
Approximate publication year rough guess late 1987-1988.
Read between 1987-1991
Title Guesses: Beyond the Sunset(no clue really. ?????)
Character names-unknown
Plot description: A girl meets a military guy at/or outside of a USO. The guy either leans on a car or out of a car window and they talk, the guy smokes cigarettes, they end up in a relationship… possibly WW2 era themed.
Cover:  Very plain with no graphics or calligraphy, San Serif style font for title/author, deep purplish sunset.
Setting: Mainland US maybe East Coast
Publisher:  I don’t believe it was Sweet Dreams/Wildfire/Crosswinds/Sunfire.  It might have been Point Romance(Scholastic). The book was in a display with these types of paperback books.  A librarian told me once that sometimes these books were purchased in a display set but I do not believe that this book was part of a series and was a stand-alone book.

337K: Cursive Letters Tractor Mystery

I know this is a long shot but I am looking for a book that I can only remember a few key details about, as well as what the cover looks like. It was definitely published before 2007. I would assume it is considered in the subject category of “Teen Fiction” or something similar. On the cover, there is cursive writing and an image of a letter, the background is a maroon/red color. The few details I can remember include a girl who was a bit of an outcast in their school falling in love with a boy but there is some secret that is being kept. There was an accident involving a tractor which resulted in manslaughter, and that’s all I can remember.

334B: Teen romance, wheelchair, wheelchair basketball (Solved!)

Read this the summer of '72 in Santa Maria, California. It was a library book. A girl in a wheelchair and her older sister are shopping and the chair gets 2 flat tires. A young guy (ex-Army, I think) with a prosthetic leg helps them get home. He and the older sister date, but he steps on her foot as they dance. He plays wheelchair basketball, his chair tips and he's standing upright for a second, then face-plants and everyone laughs. I know this isn't much to go on, but it's all I've got.

334A: High school romance, heirloom chickens (Solved!)

I read it sometime in the early 70's. All I remember is that a girl is in science class and the teacher is talking about how certain breeds of chickens are gone because they've been cross-bred out of existence. The next day, a male student brings in cages filled with the birds that the teacher said were extinct. The girl is impressed by the boy and asks to see more.

332T: Atlantean? Girl Next Door

I am trying to find the name of a book I read as a child. The plot is basically that the girl who lives next door to the protagonist is weird and can 'float for joy' - that is, levitate. She turns out to be a descendant of Atlantis or something similar - an elder race in decline now living discretely amongst humans. They cannot interbreed - at one point the Atlanteans are described analogously to horses and humans akin to donkeys. The result is something like a mule. I think it might have been hazardous for the humans and the others to touch? Painful?

Media - Single Book / Novel

Date of Publication - Pretty sure it was in either a children's section of a public library or a school library and it pre-dates 1995. Might even pre-date 1988.

Major Themes - Decline of a race / empire?

Characters - Two children, one human, one otherwise. However, I cannot remember if the protagonist was male or female.

Language - The book was in English and I read it in England.

Target Audience - Older children? Teens?

329H: Short Stories for Girls (Solved!)

I read an anthology of teen short stories probably from the 1960s. The two stories I remember are:
1) a shy, plump girl named Becky loved to bake, but she agreed to take a role in the school play because she had a crush on a boy in the play. The role was motherly (or grandmotherly) so Becky felt she could pull it off even though she wasn’t an actress. The boy crush would come over to “rehearse” but really he was there to spend time with Becky and eat the yummy things that Becky baked. He finally admitted that Becky wasn’t a very good actress, but he wanted to date her because he felt so comfortable with her in her cozy kitchen.
2) A slim, athletic girl who always wore pedal pushers had a special word “v’standen” that she and her dad invented to show that they understood each other, no other words necessary. When she got dressed up in a strapless gown to go out on her first date, her dad made a cold remark about how she looked. He wasn’t actually being mean, he was just shocked at how his little tomboy had grown up. When she came down the stairs to greet her date, her father tried to stammer an apology. She told him “v’standen” and everything was good.
Note: This is NOT “Stories to Live By” from American Girl Magazine. I bought the book, but neither story is in it.

329E: Myfanwy – A Romance

“Myfanwy” is a short story that was included in an anthology of teen romances.  The preface of the book had the lyrics to either “Why Must I be a Teenager in Love” or “Do You Wanna Dance?” The story involves a teenage boy who attends a boy’s school and a beautiful girl named Myfanwy would be seen at church, but would never speak to anyone, and one day, the boy is sitting under a tree reading and Myfanwy approaches him and they talk.