Category Archives: YA (grades 7-9)

370W: Child/pre-teen collection of eccentric stories occurring at a school/office

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I can’t remember whether the stories are related or unrelated. A girl named Erika/Erica presents something to her class (I think it was a poem or short writing), but her name is not revealed until the end of the story/chapter, when the teacher calls her up to the front to present. Another character figures out how to hypnotize people to bawk like chickens or do other things. The book is relatively short (probably around 100 pages) and I read it around 5 years ago. The stories were quite unusual, and I first found and read it in an elementary school classroom.

370V: Teen boy wakes up and nobody can see him, he thinks he’s dead (Solved!)

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I read this book as a kid in the 1970s. I don’t remember much, except that a teen boy wakes up in the morning and soon realizes that nobody can see him. He thinks he’s dead. He can’t really interact with the world, but he does manage to ride a bus without falling through the floorboards. It might be that he never existed–I seem to remember that people weren’t wondering where he was. It might have the word “disappear” in it.

370S: All About Puberty

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Looking for a pre-teen girl book I read in the late 80s/early 90s that was already really dated. The girl in the book is going through puberty and gets her period. But the maxi pads still have the belt and the hooks. My friend and I just saw Are you there God? and for the life of us we can’t remember this book. They may have also been a part about keeping notes in a notebook about puberty.

370K: Teenaged Girl With Strict Mom Buys Pink Clothing And Wants To Ride Horses Like The Cool Girls (Solved!)

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I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of details in trying to identify this book, but here’s what I’ve got:

It was a young adult book that came out in the early to mid-‘80s – I want to say no later than 1985.  It was told first person from the view of a teenaged girl with a very strict mother who monitored everything she did.  The girl (I don’t remember her name) didn’t fit in at school and wanted to have clothes like the cool girls – I think the mom insisted on sewing all the girl’s clothes herself.  She secretly went shopping and bought a pink angora sweater and cranberry-colored corduroys and had to hide them from her mom.

I also seem to remember that the cool girls were riders at the local horse stables, and the girl wanted to ride there to be like them, even though she didn’t know how to ride. What sticks out most in my memory is that the writing style was very formal and stilted.  I remember one such sentence: “The following morning, rain was falling when I woke.”  Another was when the mom ultimately discovered the girl wearing the secret outfit and “Mother knelt to examine the construction” of the pants.

369O: The Wheel of Time (Solved!)

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The book I am looking for is a young adult novel published sometime before 1975- most likely late 50s or 60s.
In the book, a war widow with a boy and a girl takes a job as caregiver to an old country house. The children find a book in the library to “”change the wheel of time.” They some how see three children of a century before and become involved with them. At the end of the book, they children are discovered to be the heirs of the house.
Thanks in advance-I appreciate the information!

369N: Young Girl Makes it Through the Storm

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Looking for a book w/ very little info. It was a novel my 5th grade teacher read to the class in 1984 or 1985. All I know is the title was “Alee” (or contained that word) and the cover was a drawing of a girl walking in strong wind. I remember it was about a young girl making it on her own and there was a storm and tumbleweeds. It would have been a children’s or young adults book. Sorry – I know that’s not much to go on.

368D: YA Book from the early 90s about a boy who spends a summer in California

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This was a pretty small paperback, sold at Scholastic book fairs in the early 90s. It was meant for late elementary school to early middle school readers. It’s fiction, and I believe it might have been in the format of a diary kept by the main character. Pretty sure the cover had a mountain lion on it.

It was about a boy from Michigan or some other Midwestern state who for some reason had to go to California for a summer (maybe he was in some trouble at school or his parents were getting divorced, don’t remember). I remember a scene with a rattlesnake, where someone ends up chopping its head off with a garden hoe.

The ending involved him getting lost in a canyon and stalked by a mountain lion. He was about to try fighting it with a rock when search and rescue showed up to help him.

368A: Fighting animals and villains on a ranch

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I’m looking for a YA or MG book about a teen boy who lives on a ranch (New Mexico? west Texas?), his cousin Horace comes to visit for summer which he thinks will ruin his summer but Horace turns out to be a good guy who can ride and shoot and they become good friends.  There is a mountain lion or cougar that kills his dad’s prize bull Red Toro so they go out to find the cougar, Horace shoots it with a great shot.  Along the way there are some villains who are trying to jump a gold claim, Horace sprains his ankle, has to be hauled out by the boy on an Indian trapezoid carry deal, they fool the bad guys into fording the river where there is quick sand and all ends well.  Can’t remember title.  Book had line drawings, and I think the cover was edged in burnt orange or brown.