Category Archives: YA (grades 7-9)

124B: Collection of Ghost Stories for Young Adults

I don’t remember the title, but I think it may have been from Scholastic. I want to say in the 1980-1983 range.                                                                

I do remember the very first story was called “Hugh” and it was the classic hitchhiker story, and in this case Hugh the ghost saves the driver (if I’m not mistaken) from an accident.

 

121I: Pre-Teen Romance Anthology (Solved)

I read this book sometime between 6th and 8th grades, so between 1976 and 1979. It was not great literature but catered very much to pubescent and pre-pubescent girls. It was a mass-market paperback anthology of short stories, and I think they all dealt with romance and/or the characters’ first kisses. There might have been some that were just about the trials and tribulations of being that age, but if so, I don’t recall specifics. I do remember one of the stories mentioning chocolate pudding. In another -or maybe the same story- the protagonist went on her first date (possibly a school dance?), and when she and the boy walked home, he kissed her, and she said his lips tasted sweet like Coca-Cola.

 

121B: Boy Runs Away with Pig (solved)

In the late 1980’s when I was in high school we were assigned to read this book, it’s possible that it was a few years earlier in middle school. There was a young Asian boy, I remember him being Chinese or Vietnamese but he may have been Japanese because I also remember him talking about wanting a lot of “yen”. I remember it because I don’t think I ever really heard of yen before that book. Another thing I first heard of in this book was rice paddies, I don’t remember if he was running away from work on a rice paddy or if he passed by some on his journey.

I’m not sure he was running away at all he may have been on a quest of some sort, it may be that he was wanting to sell something the get money for some reason because I seem to remember he had a destination in mind.

Also, I remember a pig. I thought he had a pig with him or met a pig along the way that followed him but my mother read the book also and she doesn’t remember a pig. She doesn’t remember any more than I do about the book, all she knows is that I liked it so much I gave it to her to read. I’ve thought about this book several times over the years trying to remember it and I’ve looked all over the internet for it and I’ve asked people about it with no luck. I’m hoping it was on a lot of high school or middle school reading list and you will be able to help me.

 

110C, solved: Young Adult book about Jason and the Golden Fleece

I read this library book in the 1960s but it could have been published earlier. A young girl is chosen to represent her village by becoming a handmaiden to the temple where the Princess Medea serves. This girl is chosen because she has some special mystical power even though she is very shy. She loves Medea and makes friends with others there. And she tells the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece from her point of view. The book ends with Jason leaving Medea and Medea, in her grief, killing their children. There are many references to the Maiden the Mother and the Crone in the book.

110A: Exit Through Wall

Young adult book about a teenage girl who lives maybe in London/England in a townhouse. She removes the bricks between her house and the adjoining one next door. I don’t recall why. But she does end up using that exit. There is a fire in her house and she helps her parents escape through that wall.

109D: Art aka King Arthur

This is the 1st in a series (a trilogy) read in school around 1992-1993 (7th grade). The plot is a boy and a girl in the 20th century finding a teen, Art, and discovering that he is actually King Arthur. Art gets hurt toward the end of the book and they have to go Avalon to save him from the bad guy.