Category Archives: Teen

328T: Kids Travel to Prehistoric Age

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I am looking for a book I read in junior high back in the early 80’s. I am guessing it was from the 1950s or 60s because the book was older looking with that canvas style cover and it was green. It was about 4ish siblings (some could have been friends) that went back in time or into another dimension to the prehistoric age. I think they went through some sort of shrubbery door, but not sure. I remember them, of course, trying to get back home, because there were dinosaurs and they didn’t have much food. They came across some sort of plant at some point that sustained them. I thought the title was something about being “Lost in Time”, “Forgotten World/Past”, etc. but just a guess. Thank you kindly for any help. I have Google searched and came across a couple of books about adults getting lost in prehistoric times but this was for sure about kids and I think they were siblings and maybe even a friend with them. Maybe the oldest being early teens down to a 7 year old. Again, thanks and I hope you can help!

328R: Red Head Girl Falls In Love With Ghost Of Civil War Soldier

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When I was in high school, likely 1999-2002, I read a young adult romance novel that I thoroughly enjoyed but cannot remember much about it.
I believe it was a paperback book and the cover artwork was drawn…no photos…likely 1980s or early-bird 1990s looking work. There was a red headed girl…high school age I believe…sitting at a headstone in a cemetery…with the ghost of a soldier looking on.
I believe the plot, from what I can recall, is that this red headed high school girl was somewhere back east visiting family…aunt and uncle, perhaps, for the Christmas holiday. She was a history buff and helped her aunt in the family antique shop. She somehow met the ghost of a solider…Civil War, perhaps? He died as a young man and they fell in love and had a relationship. I think it’s the same book but…I believe she met a living young man in town who wanted to romance her over her holiday break, and threw a New Year’s Eve party. Hope this helps. I remember wanting to read all the authors’ books because this one was so enjoyable!

328O: Teenage Girl Learns About Jealousy (Solved!)

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I’ve been looking for this book forever! I read this book around 1985, in Taiwan. The book was written in another language, not sure which, mostly likely English, and translated to Chinese.

Kids / Young Adult / Teen book about a teen / pre-teen girl competing with one of her classmates about everything. The entire book was written in 1st person telling the reader how much she envies one of her classmates because that person had everything. I remember her describing the other girl’s hair and the smell of her shampoo. She loves photography and drama. Once she took a close-up photo of a tree for a contest, thought it was perfect lighting, perfect shapes… etc, but it ended up getting her in trouble because there were a curse word on the photo upside-down that she never saw. She went to a drama camp and completed for the leading role, only to found out that she had stage fright so bad that she can’t do anything.  At the end she realized that she was a great director, as soon as the spot light is not on her, she does very well.

Hope you can help.

327L: Sort of like the Boxcar Children but in ancient Rome (or was it Greece?) (Solved!)

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I read it in the 1970s, probably published then or perhaps in the late '60s. A young boy (maybe 10 or 11) and his older sister (young teenager?) from a noble family become embroiled in a mystery and they run around town (possibly Athens, but I think it was ancient Rome) hunting for clues.  They wear togas. 🙂

326C: Spaceship 10/100 Hours

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Ok, this book is one i picked up at an airport in Hawaii 2011. Its a SciFi romance that I think is intended for YA as the main characters were between 15-22. They were living on a spaceship with the Heroine sneaking through the vents. I’m pretty sure they rotated on a 10 hour schedule with the week starting over at 100 hrs.
Please help me, this book was so good it haunts me!

325T: Dream Date Turns Into Nightmare Lush

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I remember reading this book in high school (I attended from 2004 to 2008) so it was either published during that time frame or before. I remember it being about a country girl who goes out with a unique boy, who I think ignores her at one point to get drunk and hangs out/dances with a older lady/groups of older woman or perhaps they whisk him away to them. The girl washes her hands of him and is angry by the betrayal and takes a truck to buy ice cream to drown her sorrows out. The boy finds her again and tries to apologize and grabs her arm to keep her from leaving but she is still holding a grudge so she wrenches her arm free, throws the ice cream in the truck’s seat, gets in, and slams the truck door in his face. She may or may not have gotten pregnant by the boy when they were dating too. That’s all I remember. Do you have any idea as to what the book is called?

325R: Goose Blown Off Course, Nursed Back To Health

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Unfortunately, I do not have a book title, which has been my challenge finding the book.  I can describe the book and the story, though.  I read it when I was about 10 years old in the early ’80s. I tended to read books significantly above my grade level, so that makes it harder to guess whether it was intended for adults or children.  I don’t think “young adult” was a real publishing genre back then?  It was an old, cloth-bound, hardcover book that I found on my great-grandmother’s bookcase.  It was very dusty.  I’d guess it was probably from the ’50s based on the aging of the paper and binding.
It was a story about a goose that got blown off course during a big storm.  A young woman found the goose.  I believe it was injured and she nursed it back to health (seems like it may have been caught in an oil slick).  There was a biologist in the story who was fascinated that the goose could have been so far from its normal nesting grounds.  Geese mate for life, and I think it paired with a goose (presumably the wrong species?) where it had ended up after the storm.  Part of the suspense of the story was, when it flew away for migration, whether it would return to where it had spent its first season or if it would follow its peers to its normal breeding grounds.  I think at least parts of the story were written from the perspective of the goose.  The goose starts migrating towards the breeding grounds with its peers but they are all going the wrong way.  It ultimately breaks off from them and returns to its “mate” in the wrong place.  Maybe there was a parallel human romance, but that I’m not sure.
It was not “The Snow Goose’ by Paul Gallico.  I bought that recently to check, and it wasn’t the right story.  This book was longer than that.  It was probably a little longer than a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys book.

325A: Pubescent Children Develop Telepathic Powers

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There’s a novel that I read years ago (late 70’s or early 80’s) from a library in England for which I can no longer remember the author or the title; so if you recognize the content, I’d be a happy camper. 🙂

The only things I can remember are…

1/ It was about mental powers, telepathy, etc

2/ Children developed these abilities at or around puberty (I think). If I remember correctly, the general populace/government reacted badly to these children.

3/ There was a woman scientist who studied these children and came up with a way to synthesize the catalyst, which she then tried on herself and, after a really rough transition, found that she had the same abilities.

3.1/ I’ve also got a vague recollection (so take it with a grain of salt) that other adults who tried to gain these powers died.

4/ The initial symptom of these powers was an increase in sensory perception and intense pleasure – enough to lock the affected person into repeating whatever felt good regardless of what it was doing to them.

4.1/ The woman scientist/doctor who managed to synthesize the activating chemical and used it on herself ended up “making love” to a tree (I’ve got a dim memory of the description of the feel of the bark against her naked skin).

4.2/ Another scene (probably just a paragraph or sentence) had a description of a boy who kept “pleasuring himself” for hours; even though he was now raw and bleeding, he couldn’t stop. (I think this was one of the notes the scientist/doctor compiled about the affected children, rather than being a central theme or character development).

4.3/ The powers allowed the children to feel the emotions of others (though I do not remember if it was limited to others with powers or everyone in general) and they banded together to feel safe/loved/etc. when the rest of the world turned against them due to fear. I don’t remember if it was true telepathy or just extreme empathy.

5/ Once she had the same abilities as the children, the woman scientist joined up with a group of them – presumably to help defend them against the haters.

Beyond that, I have no idea. The only other non-story items I know are…

  • I read it late-70’s or early 80’s.
  • Given the more grown-up content, it is not likely to be a children’s book; though it could be Teens and older.

I know it’s not much to go on, but it’s been driving me batty trying to remember the title.

 

324R: Teen Son and Father in 20th Century help Patient who speaks Ancient Greek return to hidden Greek location

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For some time I have been trying to remember the name and author of a book I read when I was around 13 years old, in the 1960’s.  I believe the book would have been written in the 1950’s or early 1960’s, although maybe it was earlier from the 1940’s.  I borrowed it from the public library in town.

It was by a male author who also wrote adult mysteries.  My father recognized the author’s name and so also read this book and we talked and joked about it a little bit that year.

The plot is generally, that there is a boy, (young teen?) whose father is either a doctor or professor or archeologist ,who must speak Greek, because he is called in to talk to a patient who speaks ancient Greek.  The patient says that he is from Greece (somewhere in ancient Greece, only to him it is the current and only one).   Apparently he died and was sent out across the River Styx and ended up in a hospital or a mental institution in England, I believe.

So he wasn’t really dead when he was sent on his journey to the afterlife.   As the father and the patient talk, the father and the son decide to go with the patient to retrace his journey and find the ancient Greek outpost that has somehow survived into the the 20th century.  They find it and although I still can visualize this place, surrounded by mountains and cut off from the modern world, I cannot remember the ending of the book either.

I remember odd lines and scenes from the book.  For example, the son has decided to read the Bible front to back and reflects upon some of the odd customs and the many battles in the Old Testament.  Also, one of the things the patient says is that he prefers to clean himself by stepping into a basin of water and not the contraption where you pull on a chain and you are rained upon.

I have looked at many of the mystery authors of the time and have tried to see if they wrote such a book to no avail.  I also looked in the Public Library where I grew up but it was too overwhelming and there is a good chance that book is not only out of print but was put into one of their many book sales years ago.

I cannot remember the title.  Did it have “Zeus” in it somewhere?  Did it refer to the river Styx?  Did it have some cute title like the Greek Urn Cracked?   The title must have captured my attention.

I appreciate your help with this as periodically I become obsessed with finding it.