Category Archives: YA (grades 7-9)

376U: Seeking a YA book written before 1978

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I’m so hoping you can help me.
My friend would love to find this beloved book.  She read it in 1978 while living in a kibbutz in Israel, and believes it may be  a book by either a U.S. or English/UK author. She believes this because there were women from the UK who brought books to Israel for the children/young people in the kibbutz to enjoy.

The plot is as follows:  a college-aged girl becomes ill and is hospitalized for a long time.  A hospital employee (might be a doctor, nurse, orderly, or someone else) tries to cheer up the hospitalized patients.  It then turns out that this person is stealing jewelry from the patients.  
Further details include the college student describing a man who cat-calls her, as a “wolf,” and the girl likes horses.

376N: Magical Silversmith (Solved!)

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Looking for 1950’s or 60’s fantasy young adult books about a magical silver smith in Massachusetts who can time travel and shape shift and enables a young boy to share his adventures.  Author might be Lawson or Dawson.  I have tried the Library of Congress listings of books without success.  The books were available in the San Marino, CA public library into the 1970s or 1980s.

Additional story elements:

The silversmith was an adult during the American revolution. Story elements involve turning into various animals and birds, pirates and participation in the revolution

375G: Darker Harry Potter-Like Novel Series I read in the early 2010s

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I have been racking my brain trying to figure out the name of a young adult fantasy series that I read in the early 2010s. From what I remember, there was a male protagonist (probably teenaged?) who was extraordinarily skilled in some magical system that revolved around basic elements (fire, earth, water, etc). I feel like the series may have begun with some sort of entrance exam, that was repeated at the start of every book/school year. There was always some dark force acting as an antagonist, but the protagonist wasn’t very well liked with classmates (I think they had all had a lot more training than him, some kind of elitist thing). All that’s to say that other students may have been minor antagonists as well. This one is a total shot in the dark but I believe the main bad guy wore a mask of some sort. It wasn’t actually super reminiscent of Harry Potter, besides the basic plot of a super talented kid appears out of nowhere and isn’t well liked. But, I can’t think of a better title so I’m sticking with that. The cover was a dark brown, maybe maroon-leaning, with a simple icon on the front I believe. This is the detail I’m least sure about since, during my search, I found a copy of Swann’s Way that looks a lot like what I’m describing and I may be conflating mental images here. I understand that none of this is super specific, or concrete for that matter, but any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated!

375E: Very dark YA, MC teen boy dies saving girl he kidnapped

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Published date2002-2007 at least that is when we had it in Australia
Story– MC is a teen boy who doesn’t have any friends and is in high school, he is “good” however he is timid and very unsure of himself – he has a crush on a beautiful popular girl from school but she doesn’t know he exists- he makes friends with a boy who is nice to him and a little weird who has a group of friends outside of school so he introduces MC to them- the friends are all boys and they have extreme views and want to act out violently, however MC doesn’t care about this as he doesn’t think the boys will act on it and it’s better than being alone- one day the leader of the group devises a plan to kidnap someone from school to hold them hostage (for reasons I cannot remember sorry), the leader has a car and weapons and makes MC get involved as he is a weak character- it turns out the leader of the group wanted to kidnap the girl from MCs school who he has a crush on and he feels very conflicted about this but doesn’t know how to voice this and get out of the group or tell the police- they kidnap the girl and hold her hostage in a friend’s house but the kidnapping makes the news and it becomes a full blown investigation which escalates the situation quickly- MC had thought that they would just release the girl after the leaders demands are met however due to the kidnapping becoming breaking news he realises there is no way out- he tries to come up with plans to help her escape and make her feel less distressed without getting caught by the leader but it doesn’t work- the leader of the group decides that because his demands are not taken seriously by the police he will take the girl into the woods at night and kill her by hanging her- they tie her up and take her into the woods and put a noose around her however something happens and i think she slips and she suddenly becomes hung – at this point the police have found them and they all run away except MC who desperately tries to cut her free- he manages to save her however there’s a siege and the police find him and start shooting at him and so he runs- the story ends quickly after this chase as he is shot dead.
As you can see this is an incredibly dark story and I was super surprised that it was YA and in my school library! The book absolutely wrecked me for weeks when I was 15. I think it must be out of print as I can’t find it anywhere on google/goodreads.

374M: The Rose of Death (Solved!)

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Seeking a murder mystery about drowned boy who was bullied probably published around 2000-2003, maybe up to 2005 this book was for high schooler and young adults and I think the cover was blue with a rose. The main story line of the book was an investigator was trying to find the cause of death of a teenage boy who was found in the river who they initially thought was a drowning but then found stool in his lungs that was his cause of asphyxiation. The river had once had a sewage issue, but that was investigated and found that the problem was fixed. He was accidentally killed by other students who gave him a swirly (dunked head into a toilet) that had stool in it that caused him to suffocate. The reason that he was given the swirly was he had a crush on a girl and had given her a rose he had changed the color of from red to (possibly) blue as a magic trick, the book did describe the chemical trick used to perform this. I do not remember the color of the rose, apologies. The girl’s bf or some other significant male figure.

373Y: Black Ghost on Halloween and Adventures in the City

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Here is what I remember: In the early 1970’s I read a book about a girl (possibly named Ginny?) and it was a young teen/adult chapter book.  The girl does a number of fun things, like making her own Halloween costume.  I think she called it a black ghost.  She dyed fabric black and made strips of fabric that flew out as she spun around.  In another part she goes to the “city” with her dad.  Seems like it was around the Holidays and she eats clams with spicy sauce and talks about how they slip down her throat.  I wish I could remember more!  I loved that book so much and have lately been craving books from my youth.  It would have appealed to girls from 5th grade on.  

373T: Zen Koans for Young Adults

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This was a book I purchased for my elementary school library in the mid 90’s through early 2000’s.  I think it was published in 94 or 95.  It was a slender black hardcover book with white lettering (I think) about 21.6 cm x 16.5 cm.  I don’t remember a cover image but if there was one it was a simple line drawing.

I think one or more of the keywords Japan, Japanese, stories, koans, or zen were in the title or prologue.  It had brief stories (one page or less).

Here are two I remember:
*The master pours tea in a student’s cup, but the cup is full so what the master poured spills over the sides.
*The master and student are walking down a muddy road.  They encounter a woman standing before a muddy muddle.  The master carries the woman to the other side of the puddle, puts her down, and he and the student trudged on.  After many minutes the student blurts (something like) “Master why did you carry that woman?  You know (avoiding women?) is part of our practice. The master replied that he carried the woman but a few steps but the student was still carrying her.
I’ve scrolled through what seems like millions of hits for Zen and koans with no luck. It was written for young people (5th-adult?) according to my search tools.  It was not in a picture book format like the Muth books. And it pre-dates them by many years.

373K: Supernatural spinning top

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I am trying to locate a favorite childhood book, probably published sometime in the mid sixties. I do not recall the title of the book, but it is in the “supernatural” category, geared for pre-teen or early teenage years. The main character is called Dorcas and she has a spinning top that allows her to access her supernatural power. I believe she is an orphan. There is also a young man that is her advocate. She acquires damaging information through her “gift” that implicates stalwart pillars of the community; they come after her as the book comes to a climax, with her being trapped in a cave by one of these perpetrators. She is rescued at the end of the book by her young protagonist who, at one point, had given her a red scarf. I always thought this book was called “The Spinning Top”, but any and all efforts to locate it by that title have been completely futile! I have been searching for this book for nearly 50 years and hope that, with your help, it can be found.