Category Archives: YA (grades 7-9)

108E: Young Adult Mystery Takes Place in Scotland

I believe I read this book in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s.  I also believe it was part of a series with the two main characters.  This may have been the first or second book in the series.  I do not think subsequent books took place in Scotland.  The two main characters were a guy and girl (possibly a couple, I do not think they were related) in their late teens or early 20’s.  There may have been a romantic aspect of them getting together.  I remember the guy being self-assured and flirty and the girl being more sensible.  In the particular book I’m remembering, they travel to Scotland and stay in a castle near a loch to solve a mystery.

103O: Violet Pendant

I’m looking for a YA book from the late 60s or early 70s.  It’s about the friendship between a teenaged boy and girl, who over the course of time become closer-boyfriend/girlfriend.  He arranges to have a locket or pendant made for her fashioned like a violet, since she loves violets.  Not much to go on, I’m afraid.

 

101A, solved: Portuguese brooch lost in Cape Cod Cranberry bog

I read this book one summer in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s?  I believe my grandmother took it out of the Harwichport or Harwich Massachusetts libraries for me, as I was about 10 years old.  It is set on Cape Cod and is about a Portuguese Family.  The grandmother has a brooch she brought from the “old country” which is very dear to her.  And her granddaughter “borrows” the brooch without permission and goes skating on the cranberry bogs, where as I assume you can guess, the brooch is lost.  Grandmother turns this into a teaching moment and there is tremendous remorse, etc., etc. Magically, in the spring when the little girl is walking across the bog (or playing there or working there?), she sees the brooch encased in the ice and brings it home to her grandmother.

I do not know why this book is so memorable to me, except that I stayed on Cape Cod with my grandmother most summers and I guess it hit a chord.

I do not remember the actual title or the author (hey it was 50 years ago!), only that the book was about an inch thick and had a yellow cover with sketches of the Portuguese grandmother.  I do believe the entire book was illustrated throughout , as I remember seeing a sketch of the brooch in the ice.

Anyway, not much to go on I know – any information would be much appreciated!