Tag Archives: farm

360Q: Picture Book about a farm with huge vegetables (Solved!)

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This is a larger-format picture book, in full color, with illustrations that cover most/all of each page.  I read it in the early- to mid-80’s.  There’s a farmer who grows vegetables and something happens to his farm where he starts growing GIGANTIC vegetables.  There’s a bad guy (I think he’s dressed in a black suit and might have a black top hat?) who wants to get his hands on the farm or the stuff that makes the farm miraculous.  I can’t remember if the thing that makes the vegetables big starts to affect the farmer’s kids or not?
Thank you for reading!

357B: A Rural Cat’s Life

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It was published sometime before 1991.

It was the story of a cat's life, I think it was living on a farm, or generally somewhere rural. It starts when the cat was a kitten and ends when the cat is old. The book had large pages, probably 12"+ tall. The pages were mostly taken up by large drawings done in just black and white lines, like a comic book.  I think there were brief sentences at the bottom of the page, captions for the drawings.

355G: Vampire Horror Anthology

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The book I am looking for is a horror anthology of Vampire fiction published a minimum of eleven years ago, maximum twenty-one. The book itself contains two stories I remember, one better than the other. The first is about a cantor at a failing synagogue who is contacted by a lapsed Jewish man whose son has fallen victim of a vampire. The cantor is called upon to help, and tries several methods which do not work, and it comes about that only the father is Jewish, not the son, and the son has neither converted nor done his bat mitzvah. The cantor then does an emergency conversion, then an emergency mitzvah, and the vampire is exorcised. The story is set in the modern-day, maybe in the 90s.
The second story I remember less. It is told in the first person by a farmer on a failing farm about how a farm girl he hires (who he believes is from Pennsylvania) ends up in a sexual relationship with the farmer and his son. As the relationships continue, the farm fails, because “the plowing didn’t get done because we were plowing her”. It is a very explicit story and ends with a wiser townswoman realizing the girl is a vampire and stealing her. The man telling the story realizes the girl is from Transylvania, not Pennsylvania, and that is when the shoe drops for the reader that the girl was eating these two men slowly, hence why they were getting thinner and hungrier as time went on while she stayed plump and beautiful.
I read this book when I was about sixteen, and the story about the Rabbi stuck with me. It is the piece I’m most interested in finding, but sadly the book seems to be lost to me. I apologize for the explicit nature of the second story, again, I read the book at sixteen and it was the only story of its type I had engaged with at that time, therefore it has stuck in my head.

347T: 1960ish – Girl on farm for summer, horse riding, Indian rock paintings (?), county fair (?)

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I read this book in about 1962. A girl goes to stay with relatives (I believe) on a farm for the summer. I seem to recall that she was straight laced and the farm family was very laid back. She learned to ride horses and they rode all over the countryside. A particular place I remember them going was to a rocky area (by a creek?) that had Indian paintings or markings on the rocks. I think the climax of the book was them going to possibly a county fair where there was a horse race.

346Q: Fairy brings clay animals to life (Solved!)

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American book published some time around 1930 about a little blond boy on a farm. The farm animals were all his friends. One day there was a storm and all his animals were carried away and he was heartbroken. He went down to a stream and started making little animals out of clay in the shape of the animals he had lost. He fell asleep and a fairy who was riding around on a throne made of pink clouds saw him and had pity on him and used her magic wand to bring the animals to life. The book was illustrated in color and the title might have included something like Happy Valley Farm or Sunny Valley Farm.

346I: Large format, landscape oriented, pen and ink book of old farm life

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The book is from the 1990s or 2000s. i think it’s just called “Farm” and it’s quite large – 18 inches wide by 10 inches tall or so. The spine is on the top – it opens upwards. It’s completely hand lettered with pen & watercolor drawings of life on an old farm (English I think). The cover is broth cloth. It may be more of an art book than a children’s book. I believe the author might have a French name. Thanks for your help!

329V: Girl who runs family farm or plantation and love story with doctor

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I’m looking for an older book. It was a bit like Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy in tone, although not written in epistolary format. In the book, the girl (either an older teen or early 20’s) is in charge of running a family farm or plantation after the death of a family member (can’t remember if one or both parents died). There are various servants and some younger family members who live there as well. The girl has to shoulder the burden of all the work. Various challenges ensue, including everyone getting sick and a local area doctor coming to treat them. I want to say that they were raising cotton, but I’m not completely sure. She initially thinks that the doctor hates her, but in the end, he reveals his love and admiration for her. I believe it is set in the US—either the South or the Midwest. The time period would be early 20th century—it’s definitely not set later than 1950. I checked it out from the library several times and I believe the author’s last name is towards the end of the alphabet, although I can’t quite remember what it was.