Category Archives: YA (grades 7-9)

296S: Buttermilk skies

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This book was most likely written in the early to mid 1960s. I found it in my junior high school library around 1970.

It might have been written first person.The main character was girl about 15 and I recall three distinct scenes.In one she stands looking out her back door at dusk or night and sees what she describes as “buttermilk skies.” She might say it came from the Hoagy Carmichael song. In another scene she stares at herself in the mirror before going out and thinks “When last seen she was wearing ….” like newscasters do in describing a missing person. The last I recall is that she crossed herself, even though she was not Catholic.

296F: Teen Overeats on Holiday Vacation Due to Parents’ Divorce

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I read this young adult novel in the early 1990s at my local library. It seemed like it was relatively recently published at the time. I believe that it was a first person story, about a teenage girl who is either on Thanksgiving or Christmas break from school. Her parents tell her they are getting divorced, and she starts secretly overeating all of the leftovers from either the Thanksgiving or Christmas meal. She is writing in her journal, feeling isolated, and having some weighty conversations with her parents–particularly her dad, if I remember correctly–all while developing an unhealthy relationship to food. The book ends with her swearing off of the overeating, and taking walks in the snow to lose all of the weight she gained over the holiday vacation.

296E: Littlest Joe (Solved)

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About a mutt dog, a many-paged book and the longest I’d read at age 11 in 1957, who goes through many awful experiences through his lifetime and dies at the end. I think the dog was part pit bull and maybe bulldog, definitely a short, squatty and solid guy. I had checked it out as many times as possible, then finished it all through the night so I could drop it off at the library the next day. Intending to reread it, I found that it had been withdrawn for repairs and never returned to the shelves.

296B: A secret note or message or clue

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I have no idea what the title is but the book would appeal to a 8-10 year old girl. It was in my grade school library. I remember that the girl was orphaned or sent to live with a relative, possibly a grandmother or aunt. I’m leaning toward aunt. The place is mysterious and there is a mystery of sorts. The key part I remember is the young girl protagonist finds a secret note or message or clue on paper under a loose brick, I believe around the pool or on the patio, but I’m 99% sure it was around the pool. This would have been around 1978-80, although the book may have been slightly older.

295Y: Young Reader Adventure with Plane Crashes, Loch Ness, and Balloon Races (Solved)

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This book was read in middle school. It featured four stories with the same gang of young boys. One story was of them faking a Loch Ness Monster using radio-controlled boat in their lake. Another was their search for a crashed airplane using radio direction finding. A third was their competing in a hot-air balloon race. The fourth I do not remember. This was probably published in the 80’s or late 70’s.

295V: Trapped in a snow globe as pets (Solved!)

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It was a paperback about two girls on a trip with their family and they stop at some mine or cave. The younger sister runs off into the gift shop and the older follows. The evil gift shop owner ends up trapping both in a giant snow globe as pets for a giant family in the cave system. They really just wanted the little sister so the elder is a freebie. They end up escaping when the older girl melts the snow globe on the fireplace or something and they run out through the tunnels.  Might have been apple paperbacks or similar.

295U: Ring-Around-A-Rosie (Solved)

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I am looking for a book I read in the mid-1960’s, probably young adult.  Tells the story of a girl who moves to Cape Cod? (some seashore region) to train with a famous tole (painting on tin ware, etc.) painter.  At first she just copies his designs, but he insists she should find her own muse.  One day she sees a group of kids playing ring-around-a-rosie and does a design based on that.

295S: The Holy Island of Lindisfarne

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I’m looking for a children’s or YA novel about St. Cuthbert, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, some children, and possibly a selkie (mythological creature). The story, as I remember, was somewhat mystical and had to do with St. Cuthbert. I would have read it in the late1960s— it’s not The Wind Eye by Robert Westell (1977), which was published too late to have been the book I read. I remember the cover being illustrated in shades of gray and white. It may have shown some birds flying around the island, which has a distinctively shaped profile.

295G: 90s young adult book with a man who has had his tongue cut out

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A couple of kids on a mountain and are either rescued or menaced (possibly both) by a man who has had his tongue cut out. He may have been Native American or it may have been implied that this was done by Native Americans. He might also have had a dog. Probably 1995-2000. May have won awards as this was read aloud in a children’s library where award-winning books were often chosen.