I’m looking for the name of a book. It’s a children’s book where a little boy decides to run away from home but along his way he stops at I think it’s a deli tells the person he’s running away and they give him a sandwich. He goes to another shop says he’s running away and they give him a blanket. It’s not the book boy was I mad. It was from the ’70s or the ’80s.
I read this children’s book in the 1970s, but the book could have been older than that. A girl gets a unicorn horn from somewhere (possibly an antique store or a relative), and whenever she holds it, figures of speech become literal. I remember being freaked out by a woman whose tongue literally began flapping at both ends. This may have been only one of several magical things that happened to the girl over the course of the book, but it’s the only one I remember.
I had the book as a child in the early ‘90’s.
The book was brown and had pictures in the centre of the front and back, embossed. Collection of stories, one about a fire sprite and water nymph trying to be together. Illustration of them with a glass window between them. One of the last stories in the book had to do with a stone walled off orchard and a giant keeping the children out. Something about the stigmata.
A piece of a poem that I read in a book at the Dartmouth College Library in the late sixties contained these lines (or something close):
“I think there is a much more terrible thing. To be raised without one’s own consent In the cave of the mind. Like a faded fish. And to go as assuredly blind in the soul. As a Saint”
I think the poem was titled “My South”, I don’t remember the author.
Am trying to find a book or play, I think it was a children’s play from the 1960’s and in one scene, one of the cast characters uses the words
‘oh mighty king with rusty tin, come down to the water so i can throw you in’
Can you help me find the book or the play please?
I have been racking my brain trying to figure out the name of a young adult fantasy series that I read in the early 2010s. From what I remember, there was a male protagonist (probably teenaged?) who was extraordinarily skilled in some magical system that revolved around basic elements (fire, earth, water, etc). I feel like the series may have begun with some sort of entrance exam, that was repeated at the start of every book/school year. There was always some dark force acting as an antagonist, but the protagonist wasn’t very well liked with classmates (I think they had all had a lot more training than him, some kind of elitist thing). All that’s to say that other students may have been minor antagonists as well. This one is a total shot in the dark but I believe the main bad guy wore a mask of some sort. It wasn’t actually super reminiscent of Harry Potter, besides the basic plot of a super talented kid appears out of nowhere and isn’t well liked. But, I can’t think of a better title so I’m sticking with that. The cover was a dark brown, maybe maroon-leaning, with a simple icon on the front I believe. This is the detail I’m least sure about since, during my search, I found a copy of Swann’s Way that looks a lot like what I’m describing and I may be conflating mental images here. I understand that none of this is super specific, or concrete for that matter, but any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated!
Only thing I remember it was a female protagonist, she had a dagger that had to have blood, it would force her to kill someone or cut herself. There were butterflies that were actually demons. I”m pretty sure it was from the early 80’s or late 70’s. Hopefully you’ll be able to help me with this. Thanks.
Published date2002-2007 at least that is when we had it in Australia
Story– MC is a teen boy who doesn’t have any friends and is in high school, he is “good” however he is timid and very unsure of himself – he has a crush on a beautiful popular girl from school but she doesn’t know he exists- he makes friends with a boy who is nice to him and a little weird who has a group of friends outside of school so he introduces MC to them- the friends are all boys and they have extreme views and want to act out violently, however MC doesn’t care about this as he doesn’t think the boys will act on it and it’s better than being alone- one day the leader of the group devises a plan to kidnap someone from school to hold them hostage (for reasons I cannot remember sorry), the leader has a car and weapons and makes MC get involved as he is a weak character- it turns out the leader of the group wanted to kidnap the girl from MCs school who he has a crush on and he feels very conflicted about this but doesn’t know how to voice this and get out of the group or tell the police- they kidnap the girl and hold her hostage in a friend’s house but the kidnapping makes the news and it becomes a full blown investigation which escalates the situation quickly- MC had thought that they would just release the girl after the leaders demands are met however due to the kidnapping becoming breaking news he realises there is no way out- he tries to come up with plans to help her escape and make her feel less distressed without getting caught by the leader but it doesn’t work- the leader of the group decides that because his demands are not taken seriously by the police he will take the girl into the woods at night and kill her by hanging her- they tie her up and take her into the woods and put a noose around her however something happens and i think she slips and she suddenly becomes hung – at this point the police have found them and they all run away except MC who desperately tries to cut her free- he manages to save her however there’s a siege and the police find him and start shooting at him and so he runs- the story ends quickly after this chase as he is shot dead.
As you can see this is an incredibly dark story and I was super surprised that it was YA and in my school library! The book absolutely wrecked me for weeks when I was 15. I think it must be out of print as I can’t find it anywhere on google/goodreads.
I am looking for what I think is an anthology of poetry, illustrated, that contains an extremely cleverly illustrated version of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”. Black and white line drawings I believe. I remember seeing it in a bookstore in Ithaca circa 2012 it might have been newly published then. There were other poems in the book, possibly also short stories? And authors besides Kipling?
It was a children’s fiction novel I read in the early to mid 1990s. The story was about a horse that had escaped from its owners, who I think were neglecting it. The escaped horse was found by two young girls who were friends, both of whom want to help the horse when they realise he’s hungry and in poor condition. Knowing that if they return the horse to the rightful owners that he’ll probably just continue to be neglected, the girls decide to care for him in secret rather than return him to the abusive owners. There’s an abandoned, overgrown stable at the back of a nearby property that is owned by a mysterious recluse who lives in the property’s main house, so the girls have to be very careful to not get caught trespassing by the landowner. The girls have to clear a tall enough path through the undergrowth and remove the poison ivy so they can move the horse into the old stable, which they do their best to clean and repair. They share the responsibility of caring for the horse, taking odd jobs around their neighbourhood to earn extra cash and they pool their pocket money to purchase the feed and supplies they need from the hardware store. Much of the story revolves around the girls working to feed the horse up to improve his physical condition and health, but it is also stressful and difficult for the young girls to constantly manage the demanding routine by themselves and still keep it secret from everyone, which creates some tension in their friendship. Eventually they get found out by the landowner, and the girls are terrified he will call the police and that they’ll be in big trouble for stabling the horse on his property without his permission. But when they finally speak to the man who owns the old stable they are surprised to find that he is actually a kind man and not scary like the schoolyard rumours said. He explains to them that he let the stable go to seed after his horse-loving daughter died, as it was just too painful for him to look at it and constantly be reminded of her. The young girls explain their side of the story to him and the man is touched by their passion and empathy for the neglected horse. To his surprise they remind him of his daughter, but not in the painful way he used to experience in years gone past. Instead he feels quite touched by their efforts to care for the horse and he realises that he also wants to see the horse properly looked after because his daughter would have wanted the same thing. He gives the girls permission to keep stabling the horse on his property, and I think he even promises to help repair stable and maybe even assist with some of expenses associated with keeping the horse. But the condition he gives them is that they have to come clean to their parents about what they’ve been doing. By the end of the book the girls are very happy to be caring for the horse openly with the permission of the owner and their parents, but they kind of miss the excitement of keeping such a huge and exciting secret from everyone.