Category Archives: YA (grades 7-9)

127C: YA illustrated by Gorey or similar artist?

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Do not know title or author or even exactly what it was about.  I read this book sometime between 1979 and 1982 when I was a preteen, but it may have been published before that.  Here’s what I remember: Very dark feel to it.  The main character was a boy.  It had the feel of Edgar Allan Poe, and there may have been poetry or rhymes but maybe not.  It was a mystery perhaps?  There may have been a mansion or an iron gate?  It took place mostly at nighttime?  Most vivid are the drawings — black and white, very similar to Edward Gorey, but I feel perhaps he is not the actual illustrator.  I’ve looked through his books and nothing is ringing a bell but it could be him.  This may also have just been a short story but I’m not sure.  Desperate to find!

 

125E: Sorcerers, dragons & dogs (Solved)

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I read these books during the late 90s/early 00s. I believe the title may have had something to do with the antagonist, the Sorcerer, but I’m not entirely sure. My school had the first book and one sequel, I don’t know if there were more.

The book was about a boy who I think had something that the evil Sorcerer wanted. The boy befriends a small dragon who I think was called Rose, she was pink in colour but was always sent into a rage and spit fire whenever someone referred to her as pink. The dragon also had a companion, a stone dog who I think was called Flint.

The Sorcerer has a minion, I can’t remember the name, it was described (and was illustrated in the books) as a large beast with matted black fur, and curved horns like a ram. He is able to kidnap the boy at some point and take him back to the cave that the Sorcerer lives in. The Sorcerer himself owned a magic book that refreshed itself every few days, he was waiting for a specific spell to come up that he needed the boy for. At some point in the story the boy manages to escape and take the book with him. He stays in the forest for a few nights, using spells in the book to shield himself, he writes some of the spells down on normal paper because they last longer than the magical book, but they still fade; he is unable to memorize them either.

 

124G: 1950’s Eighth grade American history textbook

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This was my American history text for the school year 1958-1959. I remember only two things about it:
1. Among the illustrations was the usual Thomas Nast cartoon of the Tweed Ring, but what I really liked was the “Through History With J. Wesley Smith” cartoons by Burr Shafer.

2. It was the only textbook I’d come across that seemed to have been written by an actual person, with actual ideas, and maybe even a sense of humor!

Aside from that, I think it had a blue cover, and there were questions after the chapters. Not much to go one, but the Shafer cartoons were memorable.

 

124B: Collection of Ghost Stories for Young Adults

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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)

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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)

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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.