Category Archives: YA (grades 7-9)

309X: Cereal Box Mansion

2 Replies

Mom sends young boy to buy cereal. Instead of the supermarket, he goes to run-down neighborhood store. The cereal is not good, but the back of the cereal box is part of a set that combines to build a model of a Victorian mansion. Boy returns to store to buy more of the cereal, builds mansion. Ghost of sad young woman appears. She was the daughter of the cereal manufacturer. The mansion had been torn down, the rest of the cereal boxes had been discarded, and this is the last model of the house existing. She had been in love, forbidden to marry, and died in grief. Meanwhile, the boy befriends a sad old man. Eventually, he realizes that the man and ghost had been in love, many years earlier. He races home to get the house, and finds that his mother has cleaned his room, and burned the house in the incinerator. Pre-1970s.

309M: White sheep in a green field

Leave a reply

I do not know the author or the name of the book but it was published about 1947or 1948 It was the same time I read Elizabeth Enright's "Four Story Mistake."


It was about a girl who had very little in common with the kids in her school and had few friends and believes it will be worse now that she has moved. She is standing on a bridge in the new town and down at a field when a boy joins her and says "white sheep in a green field, doesn't that remind you of "Kim". That was just what she was thinking and she makes her first of many friends in a school that shares her interests.

309H: She’s obsessed with fashion (Solved)

2 Replies
The description of the book I am looking for is a young adult book, which I read in the 70’s (I was born in 1967).
The plot is a young girl living with her family in New York City who is obsessed with fashion. When her parents leave her in New York City alone when they go on vacation (which she is thrilled about) she stumbles into a Woody Allen set and believes she is going to be in the movie.

309G: A girl named Meg

1 Reply

This book was about a girl named Meg whose family moved to the old west and settled in a small community. There were some problems with Indians, a barn-raising, a pregnant girl and a blue (or red) dress for the dance. Her friend got the other color. A housecoat was referred to as a “wrapper”. Was originally published under another title, then abridged. I read this when I was 11 or 12 (1967-68) and have been trying for years to find this. Thanks!! (I want the Unabridged version, please!) Thanks!

309C: 60s or 70s urban YA

1 Reply

This will probably be too little to go on, but I’ve been racking my brain for a year trying to remember a book I read when I was in middle school. It was YA and from the late 60s or 70s. It may have been a bit more of a pulp paperback than YA, but it was definitely geared towards young readers. It had an urban setting and there was a racial understanding component to the plot. I think the protagonist was white and he ended up befriending an African-American classmate. Almost anything else I try to remember about the plot (was there gang tensions? were they accused of a crime and had to hide out?) then convince me I’m remembering a different YA novel I read around the same time. The one thing I do seem to remember is totally pointless and trivial, but the main character sees the girl he likes in a corner store and causes her to lose her balance by knocking her in the back of the knees. I know it’s not much to go on, but I’m open to suggestions and guesses. Thanks!

308W: Time travel is a wheel within a wheel

4 Replies

I think the title was “Ghosts” or at least had that word in the title. I read it in the late 70s from my junior high school library.

The story was about a brother & sister who managed to travel back in time to know the children who lived in the same house. (I think they turned out to be related.)  Their Uncle was involved, and he explained time travel as some sort of wheel within a wheel (I never grasped the concept).  The selfish immature girl who lived in the house couldn’t see them, but could hear them when they spoke. When she proudly modeled a new dress and asked her mother for an opinion, she only heard the voice of one of the children say “I think she looks like a stuffed sausage!”  When they accidentally broke a vase, I believe it altered their time, and disappeared.

It was made into a movie at some point, because I found it on TV once, but I believe it had a different name.

I wish I knew more, but it is all I can remember. I’d love to read it again and share it with my children.

Thanks so much for trying to help!

308V: Haunted Houses in New England

6 Replies

These were several books by the same author, but not a series.  My 7th grade school librarian introduced me to the author.  This would have been around 1985-86.  The books all dealt with old, haunted houses in New England.  One had a creepy basement with a dirt floor, and bodies buried under it.  Another had a person look out a third story window to see a face looking back, and knew it was a ghost.  These books felt very grown up to me at the time, but were definitely Young Adult.  They were eerie and moody, but not Stephen King scary.  It was a woman author, and the covers usually had an old house in silhouette. I’d love to revisit this author, as I read all of the books in our school library over and over.  Some faint memory says the authors name might have been Barbara something……

308U: Boys who would sail

Leave a reply
 

Series or collection of books about boys who would sail on boats from 1700s or 1800s.  The boys were lower level people on boats.  Remember one part told about learning to use stars to navigate by.  Several books think by same author. Targeted junior high or high school readers.  Read them in 1970’s.  Loved them.  Would love to read again.

Thanks.

307Z: She visited a field of flowers

Leave a reply

I believe its a YA novel. Its a about a teen girl who’s mom is sick. Her mom has a hospital bed in their home. The girl and her dad take care of the mother while none of their neighbors really know that the mother is sick. Her dad continues his coaching job and acts as if everything is good. It flashes back to before the mom got sick. The girl is almost resentful of her sick mom. Her mom eventually dies towards the end. The girl visits a field of flowers that her and her mom visited before while shes driving her moms car.

This all I can remember. Hope you can get down to the mystery of what this book’s title is!

Thank you!