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D181 Pretty sure this person is thinking of
UKELELE AND HER NEW DOLL by Clara Louise
Grant. It was a Little Golden Book, it is out of print and
collectible, so it may be expensive or hard to find. Ukelele has
a wooden doll that she loves, but when a ship comes to the
island, one of the men give her a fancy doll. But the fancy doll
can't do the doll things that the girl wants (eat sand cakes,
fit in the little doll hut) and she goes back to her wooden
doll. There are some nice
photos of it online. ~from a librarian
D181 Parrish, Anne. Floating
Island. illus by Anne
Parrish Harper 1930. survival on
desert islands; dolls - juvenile fiction. I'm pretty sure
this is it.
No doubt-It's Ukelele and Her Doll.
A Little Golden Book, 1951.
---
Child's book about a little girl (I think polynesian)
who had a clay(?) doll that she played with in the sand. A
sailor from a schooner gave her a doll with pretty hair and
clothes, but she found out she couldn't play with her in the
sand. This is an old book because I had it when I was
little and I was born in 1948.
Clara Louise Grant, Ukelele and Her
New Doll, 1951,
copyright. A cute Little Golden Book, illustrated by Campbell
Grant. A kindly ship's captain gives Ukelele a
beautiful store-bought doll, but after a day of being unable to
really play with it the way she can with her old doll, for fear
of spoiling it, Ukelele decides that she prefers the old doll.
Clara L. Grant, Ukelele and her new
doll. This was a
Little Golden Book. I have it in an anthology, A
Treasury of Little Golden Books, published in 1972.
(The stories are from between 1942 and 1960.)
Clara Louise Grant, Ukelele and Her
New Doll, 1951. A
Little Golden Book about a South Seas island girl whose handmade
doll is wooden. When a Western sailor comes to trade for
coconuts, he gives Ukelele a big china doll.
Clara Louise Grant, illustr. Campbell
Grant, Ukelele and Her New Doll, 1951. See solved mysteries, under
UV. It's a Little Golden Book about a girl named Ukelele
who lives "on a beautiful green island in the South Seas."
Ukelele has a wooden doll that her dad made her, and she plays
in the sand with it "all day long." A sailor from a
sailing ship gives Ukelele a "big china doll," but she can't
play with it in the sand, and she ends up going back to playing
with her "dear little wooden dolly." I have this story in
a treasury of Little Golden Books.
Again I have found this one as well. It's title is: Ultra
Violet Catastrophe: or The Unexpected Adventures of a Walk
With Great Uncle Magnus.
---
I remember reading and loving
this book when I was a little girl �late 70s early 80s. I
don�t remember the title or author I simply remember that a girl
goes for a walk with her pudgy, white haired and balding
Grandfather, who, at the start of the story looks very polished.
During the walk they get into various �troubles��ie. They get
chased up a tree by a bull, as they climb over a fence the
grandfather rips his pants. When they return they are scraped,
bruised and very dirty. The illustrations in the book are
wonderful. I sure hope you can help me with the title as I would
like to find a copy and read it to my 3 girls.
I think this may be Margaret Mahy's 'Ultraviolet Catastrophe',
although it's a great-uncle, not a grandfather if that's the
case.
Margaret Mahy, Ultra-Violet
Catastrophe, 1975. Thank you so very much to
the wonderful person who solved this mystery for me. The
book is in fact titled "Ultra-Violet
Catastrophe" by Margaret Mahy and I have already
found a copy. I can't wait to read it to my girls!!!
Orson Scott Card, Unaccompanied
Sonata.
Orson Scott Card, Unaccompanied
Sonata. Definitely! And here's a
link to Omni stories.
J42: Umbrella by Taro
Yashima, 1958? I adore this one, the blurred watercolors
make me very nostalgic for my own brief first six years in NYC.
#J42--japanese? illustrated picture
book: Here's the only japanese umbrella book of which I
know: Lifton,
Betty
Jean. Illustrated by Fuku Akino. New York,
Atheneum, 1968. One day a Japanese boy sees a
strange one-legged creature fly over the mountain. All the
villagers gather around it but no one knows what it is.
You didn't mention a title. I think you're referring to Betty
Jean
Lifton's The One-Legged Ghost.
Could this be James and the Rain,
by Karla Kuskin? It's not Japanese, but does tell
about James and his adventures with an increasing number of
animals. "What do you do in the rain? said James.
Have you any excellent rainy day games?"
Taro Yashima, Umbrella. This was one of my own childhood
favourites. Momo receives an umbrella for her third
birthday but has to wait for a rainy day to be able to use it.
Taro Yashima , Umbrella, 1958. This was a Caldecott Honor
Book. The cover is predominantly yellow. "On her
third
birthday, Momo (whose name means "Peach" in
her parents' native Japan) receives rubber boots and an
umbrella. Impatiently she waits for a rainy day so she can try
out her new apparel."
Unchosen
Nan Gilbert, The Unchosen, circa 1965. This sounds a lot
like THE UNCHOSEN, which I read as a kid in the
early 70s. One of the girls is pearshaped and overweight. When
her penpal announces he's coming to visit, she goes on a
starvation diet and ends up looking saggy and unhealthy. And I
think one of the girls was very thin and her glasses were always
dirty.
Nan Gilbert, The Unchosen
Nan Gilbert, The Unchosen. I don't remember the plot details, but
this may be Nan Gilbert's The Unchosen, for
which there's a brief summary (some details match) on Loganberry's Most Requested page
under the author's 365 Bedtime Stories in the
Comments section.
Nan Gilbert, The Unchosen, 1961. I found this reader's review, and
it seems to match: "Follow the foibles of Ellen, Kay, and Debbie
as they come to terms with the concept of popularity. Written in
the first person, Ellen secretly names the trio the "Unchosen,"
and describes their individual attempts to tackle self
improvement. From Ellen's horrifying steak and water diet to her
"romance" with her mysterious pen pal, Norris, you will find
yourself laughing out loud and hoping that she'll ultimately
succeed. Kay pulls no punches...rude at times, but always
painfully truthful as to the situation of the "Unchosen," and
poor Debbie, who will do virtually anything to find
romance...this beautifully written book is funny, entertaining,
and sometimes sad."
What a great service! I have been trying for years to
remember the names of those books and you got them solved in a
matter of days. W178 is Patricia's Secret (I
checked on the Internet and they even had one with the cover,
which I remember, so I know it's the right one), F204 is The
Unchosen and M325 is Marsha, thank you, thank
you. The last one, V40, sounds like Miracle on Maple
Hill which I have read, but I don't think it is that one,
although I want to get it from the library and double check
before submitting a denial, it was a very good guess. You
have made my day, you have no idea!
This suggestion is so obvious that it
probably isn't right. What about the Babaar books? There
was an uncle in those books I believe.
#E11--Arnold Lobel wrote Uncle
Elephant, but leafing through it I didn't find
anything about being fierce or using fish oil.
E11 Elephants, fierce, who use fish oil --
There's a series by J.P. Martin about "An elephant
of eccentric benevolence rules a castle kingdom so vast that
he is still exploring its byways, while carrying on a sporadic
war with disagreeable neighbours. Comic fantasy." The
series includes Uncle (1964), Uncle Cleans
Up (1965), Uncle and his Detective (1966),
Uncle and the Treacle Trouble (1967) and
Uncle and Claudius the Camel (1969).
I think I can confirm that this is the Martin
book. On page 32 of Uncle Uncle asks "Have
the windows been well rubbed with Babble Trout Oil?" "Babble
Trout Oil is a special preparation made from the babble trout,
a small fish, difficult to catch. It renders glass tough, so
that it is impervious to crossbow bolts and other missiles.
Uncle often has his lower windows rubbed with it when trouble
is threatening." Uncle's brother Rudolph arrives to help
him with attacks from the Badfort mob.
I know that the Childcraft books are orange-red and were probably
sold door-to-door. They had various illustrators, though, and I'm
not sure that they were as moralistic as the set you describe.
S-10--Uncle Arthur's Bedtime stories?
The
early
ones
had
orange-red covers, but it's been awhile since I've examined the
art. They were definitely sold door-to-door and were all
stories-with-a-moral. They were issued as paperback "volumes"
and then as orange red books with four "volumes" per book.
Sure! Uncle Arthur...
Written by Arthur Maxwell.
---
I am looking for a book I read as a
child. I am 48 y/o, so it had to have been published before
1951. It was a collection of children's stories, black and
white print, shiny stock, large printing. The only story I
remember from it is "Georgie and the Policeman". It also had
black and white pictures. Don't have aclue of the title or
author and don't know if I would recognize it by title - butI
would know it if I saw the book.... Thank you. There was
another story in it Iremember (but not the name) about a boy
in the hospital who is afraid to die and theother children
tell him that Jesus comes through the hospial every night to
take thechildren who are very sick and he just has to keep his
arm up so Jesus will see him.
He is too sick to do that so the other
children prop up his arm with pillows and hedies that night.
Even though it sounds so, I do not remember it as a sad story.
Thanks, again.
The optrician I went to when I was a kid
had this book! I clearly remember the story about the boy
and the arm. It was a religious publication, and was
called something like Favorite Children's Stories of
Courage
Both stories are from a book called Uncle
Arthur's
Bedtime Stories. There were a couple of
volumes of the books. They are all stories with a moral,
and there were also Bible stories at the back of each
book. And the boy in hospital wasn't afraid to die, he
wanted to because he was very sick (I think he'd been in a fire)
and wasn't going to get better - that's why it wasn't a sad
story. They must have been pretty popular books because we had
them as kids here in Australia too. Hope you can find
them! **Later...
In addition to what I sent
previously..........the books are by Arthur S Maxwell,
and I think they were published in book format and in magazine
format. Georgie and the Policeman has to be in either Volume 1
or 2 of the books, because I remember the story and they were
the only volumes we had at home.
Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories.
I had this series as a child, and I definitely remember the
story about "Jesus coming through the hospital ward and 'taking'
children who had their hand raised, to Heaven to live with
him." This particular story really frightened me, and for
many months I slept with my arms underneath the covers so that
God wouldn't think that I wanted to die, and make a mistake and
take me to Heaven accidentally. (Okay, so I wasn't a
particularly bright child!)
---
THE BOOK I'M LOOKING FOR WAS READ TO ME BY MY MOTHER WHEN I WAS
YOUNG (A LONG TIME AGO!) I WAS A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES
ABOUT CHILDREN WITH A MORAL OR AN EXAMPLE OF THE UNCONDITIONAL
LOVE A PARENT HAS FOR THEIR CHILD. ONE STORY IS ABOUT A LITTLE
GIRL NAMED JUNE WHO TORMENTS HER YOUNGER BROTHER, MAKES HIM CRY,
AND TELLS HER MOTHER, "HE LIKES IT". SO THE MOTHER DOES
SOMETHING TO HER, I THINK SHE SQUIRTS HER WITH THE WATER HOSE,
JUNE CRIES AND ASKS HER TO STOP. HER MOTHER SAYS, "BUT
JUNE, YOU LIKE IT". ANOTHER STORY IS ABOUT A YOUNG SINGLE OR
WIDOWED MOTHER WHO HAS TO LEAVE HER SLEEPING BABY ALONE FOR JUST
A FEW MINUTES TO BUY MEDICINE OR MILK AND RETURNS TO FIND THE
APARTMENT IN FLAMES. SHE RUSHES IN TO SAVE HER BABY, BUT IS
LATER FOUND DEAD WITH THE BABY IN HER
ARMS. I THINK THE FIRE WAS STARTED WHEN
HER CAT KNOCKED OVER A KEROSENE LAMP. I HOPE YOU CAN HELP
ME!!! I THINK THE BOOK WAS PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1935 AND 1955.
Arthur Maxwell, Uncle Arthur's
Bedtime Stories,
1966. I don't remember the June story, but the
mother/baby/fire one sounds a lot like "Mother's Hands".
In that story, a mother leaves her baby to talk with a
neighbor and returns to rescue her from a
fire. Years later, the girl comments on the mother's ugly
hands, scarred in the fire. This story appears in volume
13.
---
I AM 45 YRS OLD AND REMEMBER THIS BOOK
FROM WHEN I WAS UNDER THE AGE OF 10 YRS OLD (1962). I REMEMBER
THE CLOTH COVER BEING A BURNT OR DARK ORANGE COLOR. IT WAS
PLAIN ON THE FRONT AND BACK. IT MAY HAVE HAD SOME KIND OF
DRAWING ON THE FRONT. TWO THINGS STAND OUT. WHEN YOU OPENED
THE HARD COVER OF THE FRONT OF THE BOOK AND THE BACK OF THE
BOOK THERE WERE WHAT YOU MIGHT CALL PENCIL DRAWINGS OF A WHOLE
BUNCH OF DIFFERENT SCENES. EX: BOY FISHING, BOYS SWIMMIMG IN
WATER HOLE, ETC... THE ONE AND ONLY STORY I REMEMBER IN A BOOK
WITH ALOT OF DIFFERENT STORIES IS THE ONE OF THE SICK LITTLE
BOY THAT WAS GOING TO PASS AWAY. HE WAS I BELIEVE AT HOME AND
BED RIDDEN. IT WENT SOMETHING LIKE THIS....HE NEW HE WAS GOING
TO DIE, AND I BELIVE IT WAS AN ANGEL THAT CAME TO HIM. HE
WANTED TO KNOW HOW HE WAS GOING TO GET TO HEAVEN. I THINK IT
WAS THE ANGEL THAT TOLD HIM IF HE RAISED HIS HAND, GOD WOULD
SEE IT AND TAKE HIM TO HEAVEN. BECAUSE HE WAS SO SICK AND WEAK
HE HAD THE ANGEL OR HIS MOTHER PROP UP HIS HAND (ARM) AT NIGHT
WITH A PILLOW. THAT EVENING HE PASSED AWAY. THIS COULD HAVE
BEEN A CHRISTIAN BOOK BUT I'M NOT SURE. IF ANYONE CAN FIGURE
THIS ONE OUT I WILL BE MORE THAN THANKFUL AND SIMPLY AMAZED.
THANK YOU!
I definitely remember this story. But I
read it in a book that used to be present in every
pediatrician's office or dentist office. It was a Christian
book. It was blue on the cover and had "Bible" in the title and
was a collection of stories (not all bible stories). I know
that's not much, but this was such a COMMON book, perhaps you
know the book I mean, and from there can find the author of this
particular story - I'm guessing the book your customer remembers
was a different printing since his book cover is different from
the one I remember.
#B149--Boy passes away--hand propped up with
pillow: Almost certainly an Uncle Arthur's
Bedtime Stories story, "Jesus Understood." The
boy in the story was hit by a car and was in the hospital
with most of his bones broken, in too much pain to live. A
boy there told him Jesus walked through the hospital wards at
night and to raise a hand to attract his attention. The
boy explained that with two broken arms he was unable to raise a
hand, so the other boy propped his hand with a pillow. In
the morning, there was the bandaged boy, dead, his hand still
propped up, and people said, "Jesus Understood." To this
day the sight of a hand protruding from a cast or an arm propped
on a pillow causes me to utter these words.
a story from Uncle Arthur's Bedtime
Stories...
I've read this book as well, but can't tell
you the title. I recall it as 1950's in style, and was an
anthology of Christian stories with morals. As I remember,
the boy was injured in an accident and was sent to hospital,
where the boy in the next bed told him about the hand
trick. Late one night, the next bed boy asked the
protagonist to help him put up his hand in the morning, he
was dead, but with a beatific smile. The anthology also
included
another winner about a boy who had a friend
his mother (?) considered a bad influence--she showed the
protagonist how one bad apple can turn all the apples around it
bad, warning him that his evil friend would do the same to him.
The Uncle Arthur Books are
put out by the Seventh day Adventists . If you check
with the pastor of a church near you they can help you get them.
---
this was a set of Bible stories that had
a cardboard case. Each book was large and hardcovered with a
dark maroon color and a photo on the front. I loved these
Bible stories! There were (I think) 4 books in the set and
each contained many bible stories. I don't quite remember
which illustrations were on the covers but I THINK one was
that man being lowered from a window in a basket. Each book
had tons of beautiful color illustrations to go with the
stories.
I have a four volume set in a cardboard
case. No photo on the covers, but books contain many
illustrations, including coloured pencil sketches by Rafaello
Busoni, and engravings by Gustav Dore among others. Is
this
what you were looking for? Mine was
published by Educational Book Guild, New York, 1956, and was
edited by Turner Hodges. Sorry, not for sale, but
maybe the info will help?
This may be Uncle Arthur's Bedtime
Stories. I just saw a copy of one yesterday and the
cover was marroon. The part about the man being lowered in a
basket was probably a story about Paul from Acts 9:25 in the
Bible. This was one book of a several volume set. Hope this
helps!
This could be Uncle Arthur's Bedtime
Stories. I've seen it with marroon covers. The story
about the man in the basket is probably about Paul from the
Bible - Acts 9:25.
Kenneth N. Taylor, The Bible in
Pictures for Little Eyes, 1950's. I am holding a reprint of part of
this book. It has a coloured picture for each story.
Each story is very short and simple, but the picures are full
colour and realistic. The one of St Paul being lowered in
the basket is particularly striking. Only one volume, but
who knows how many different formats these works take over the
years?
---
As a child in the early 50's we had an
orange hardback bible story book with our names printed on the
front of it. It was approximately 7 inches by 10 inches and
about an inch or a little more thick. There were colored
and black and white illustrations in it. The one I
remember the best was a black and white illustration of people
in the water with very frightened looks on their faces.
This was a scene from the story of the flood. I think
the title of the book might have had the word "bedtime" in it.
I just am not sure.
Maybe one of the Uncle Mac's Bedtime
Stories series? Some had orange covers, and they
definitely included religious stories.
I think you mean Uncle Aruthur?
Yup, I meant Uncle Arthur.
The Uncle Mac series was British (BBC?) and not
religious. But hey, I've never actually seen either series
myself.
Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, My
Book
of Bible Stories
I have a book that is 7 1/2 by 9 1/2, orange with red title on
the front (stamped title, so names could have been added to
match.) It is hardback and about an inch or so
thick. Black and white and color pictures, but the flood
picture is color. THis one was printed in 1978, but
it's a reprint edition and says that more than 23,000,000 copies
had been sold, so an earlier edition could have been
yours. There are 116 Bible stories, grouped in eight
parts. The first part goes from Creation to Flood, then
from Flood to Deliverance from Egypt, etc. The endpapers
are dark red orange, the cover more yellow orange. In the
flood picture, there are two elephants standing on a rock,
lightening in the background, a mother and child, a man clinging
to a tree and a woman on the rock, along with lizards. There is
a man reaching out of the water screaming, a cow in the water,
and a lion or tiger on a log in the water. It is raining
in the picture. On the next page, there is a little
picture of a dove with an olive branch in his mouth in the upper
corner. On the page before, there is a black and white picture
of Noah gathering animals and people laughing at him, however,
to a child it might appear that the people are crying and
screaming. Noah is pointing his staff at an elephant,
other animals are lined up 2 by 2. I picked this book up
at an auction a few months ago in a boxlot, and kept it when it
didn't sell on ebay. The orange color reminded me.
---
Arthur S. Maxwell, Uncle Arthur's
Bedtime Stories.
The different stories that were quoted about the dying child
with his arm up, and the mother and baby that died in the fire
were indeed all from the Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories
series. These
books were changed every few years, so it
depends on the edition for which volume your stories were
in. My set had ten volumes in full color with hard
covers. And yes, the covers are red/orange. These
were published by the Pacific Press Publishing Association
located in Mountain View, California. The books were
copyrighted by the Review and Herald Publishing Association
Washington, D.C. Library of Congress Cat. Card No.
50-3160. They were also copyrighted in Great Britian by
the Stanborough Press, Ltd. Watford, England. Isn't it
wonderful that these stories made such an impact on each of our
lives.
Arthur Maxwell, Uncle Arthur's
Bedtime Stories,
1950. Pretty sure this is what you're looking for. "Just a
Minute Janet" is in Volume 3, I think.
"Just a Minute Janet" can be found in v.3 of
the 1950 ed of Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories.
There
was
a version printed in the 1970's but I don't know if every story
was reprinted.
J75 It's not in vol 5
Arthur Maxwell (Uncle Arthur), Uncle Arthurs Bed Time
Stories. This Was It! Thanks!!!!!
:) :)
I am interested in finding a copy of a book from my childhood. Unfortunately I do not remember the title. It could be something like Disney�s Folklore. It containted storys about Brer Rabbit, Uncle Remus, and Mike Fink. It was a slightly oversized book, with a yellow cover w/pictures? And probably published in the 50�s (I�m thinking later 50�s). If this rings a bell and you can find a copy in good to vg condition without a lot of effort, let me know.
There are many book versions of the Uncle Remus stories before Disney got their hands on the stories, and then there are many Disney versions based on the movie "Song of the South," and then there are modern reinterpretations. Here's what I have in stock:
Harris, Joel Chandler. Uncle Remus. Selected and
introduced by John Tumlin. Savannah: The Beehive Press, 1974.
Discretely ex-library. Tall 8vo. VG/F. $18 postpaid.
... Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings.
Foreword by Marc Connelly and woodcuts by Seong Moy. NY: The
Heritage Press, 1957. Excellent condition. F in F box. $26
postpaid.
... Palmer, Marion, adapt. Walt Disney's Uncle Remus
Stories.Adapted from the original stories by Joel
Chandler Harris. Pictures by Al Dempster and Bill Justice. NY:
Simon & Schuster, 1947. A Giant Golden Book. First Printing.
Large 4to format, 92 pages. Gorgeous full color printing. Minor
edge wear, retaped spine with cloth binding tape. A gem of a first
edition Disney book! <SOLD>
... Walt Disney's Brer Rabbit and his Friends. NY:
Random House, 1973. From Disney's Wonderful World of Reading (a
beginning reader book). Slick pictorial boards, some wear to edges
of spine, otherwise VG+. $12 postpaid.
... The Adventures of Brer Rabbit. Illustrated by
Frank Baber. NY: Rand McNally, 1980. Pictorial boards, 4to. VG.
$15 postpaid.
... Jump! The Adventures of Brer Rabbit. Adapted by
Van Dyke Parks and Malcom Jones. Illlustrated by Barry Moser. NY:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. Beautiful condition. F/F. $16
postpaid.
... Jump Again! More Adventures of Brer Rabbit.
Adapted by Van Dyke Parks. Illlustrated by Barry Moser. NY:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987. Beautiful condition. F/F. $16
postpaid.
I don't know which book this is from, but
it is definitely an Uncle Wiggly book. When
I was young, my father used to read us the Uncle Wiggly stories
at bedtime. (My favorite color was sky-blue pink).
The author is Howard Garis.
Howard Roger Garis, Uncle Wiggily
Bedtime Stories. I
haven't seen the book to be sure, but one online review of this
book mentions the skillery-skallery alligator. The edition I saw
was a paperback edition pubished by Dover under the Children's
Thrift Classics label.
Garis, Howard R., The Little Golden
Book of Uncle Wiggily,
1953. This is definitely the book. The only
discrepancy is that nobody is actually painting a house sky blue
pink, but the first line of the book does read, "Nurse Jane
ought to like the
bungalow much better after I paint it sky
blue pink,' said Uncle Wiggily as he stood on a ladder putting
some dabs of color on his hollow stump house." In fact,
Uncle Wiggily is attempting to paint his house red as Billie
Wagtail and Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow arrive. As a
practical joke, the three hand Uncle Wiggily some green paint
which he starts to apply as he is distracted by his conversation
with his friends. The skillery-scallery alligator arrives
on the scene with the intent of nibbling Uncle Wiggily's
ears. Uncle Wiggily retreats to a tree but the 'gator
starts sawing it down with his "nutmeg-grater tail". Just
as the tree is beginning to topple, Unlse Wiggily's friends save
the day by dousing the 'gator with paint, and he beats a hasty
retreat. The last picture is of Uncle Wiggily capering
among some falling fall leaves. The illustrations are by
Mel Crawford and are wonderful. (I think he also worked in
animation, maybe for Disney.) The only other possibility
is that the person who submitted this contribution read a story
called Uncle Wiggily and the Alligator, on which,
according to the publishing info at the beginning of the book,
this Little Golden Book story was based.
U8 under one roof: could be Head of
the House, by Grace Livingston Hill "A
tragic airplane accident, causing the death of both parents,
left the seven young Graemes to be quarrelled over by their
stodgy relatives. "Aunt Petunia" and some of the others not
only wanted to separate the young people but looked forward to
managing the ample fortune left by John Graeme. Jennifer, on
the wrong side of her twenty-first birthday to be legally the
head of the house, took matters in her own capable hands and
left in a hurry with her younger brothers and sisters in order
to be out of reach of the relatives. Many ups and downs welded
the young Graemes even more closely together and brought them
closer to the highest source of all-pervading good. Mrs. Hill
has created a beguiling heroine in Jennifer Graeme. The
adventures of the seven young people are described with the
sympathetic understanding that Grace Livingston Hill brings to
all her novels." The title isn't too far off, but it's not
a buggy accident - though the book is probably old-fashioned
enough for that otherwise and it does sound like GLH's uplifting
works.
Catherine Marshall, Christy. Could it be this classic semi-religious
inspirational tale?
Wilson, Emma, Under one roof, 1955. New York, Alfred Funk
publishers. Could this be the solution? An
autobiographical tale of a Kentucky family in the early years of
the 20th century. Town the lived in is called
Hopkinsville.
---
Hi, I just stumbled upon your website and I hope you can help
me with this question about an old children's book. I used
to read and re-read a book in the late '60's and in the '70's
from our public library. It was a "young adult" book called
something like "Under One Roof" about a teenage girl near the
early part of the 20th century... her parents died in a buggy
accident, leaving her and her younger siblings orphaned.
She begged her (mean) relatives to let her raise her siblings
alone, and a young minister in the town took her side. She went
through tremenous hardships but was able to keep her siblings
with her. The searches I've done for this book (long
out of print, I'm sure) don't seem to yield anything under that
particular title!
U8 under one roof: could be Head of
the House, by Grace Livingston Hill "A
tragic airplane accident, causing the death of both parents,
left the seven young Graemes to be quarrelled over by their
stodgy relatives. "Aunt Petunia" and some of the others not
only wanted to separate the young people but looked forward to
managing the ample fortune left by John Graeme. Jennifer, on
the wrong side of her twenty-first birthday to be legally the
head of the house, took matters in her own capable hands and
left in a hurry with her younger brothers and sisters in order
to be out of reach of the relatives. Many ups and downs welded
the young Graemes even more closely together and brought them
closer to the highest source of all-pervading good. Mrs. Hill
has created a beguiling heroine in Jennifer Graeme. The
adventures of the seven young people are described with the
sympathetic understanding that Grace Livingston Hill brings to
all her novels." The title isn't too far off, but it's not
a buggy accident - though the book is probably old-fashioned
enough for that otherwise and it does sound like GLH's uplifting
works.
Catherine Marshall, Christy. Could it be this classic semi-religious
inspirational tale?
Wilson, Emma, Under one roof, 1955. New York, Alfred Funk
publishers. Could this be the solution? An
autobiographical tale of a Kentucky family in the early years of
the 20th century. Town the lived in is called
Hopkinsville.
This item is in your "solved" section.
However, it is clear to me that the actual solution was never
reached. The book she sought is "Under This Roof"
by Borghild Dahl.
Borghild Dahl, Beneath This Roof. This is definitely the requested book --
not Grace Livingston Hill. I loved this book and searched
long and hard for a copy. Read it and still love it
Hugh Walters (Walter Hughes is his
real name) wrote a series of books with red-haired female twins
who had ESP and space adventures.
Gee, Maurice, Under the Mountain,1979. I'm pretty sure that this is the
book as a lot of details match. Rachel and Theo
are red headed twins who can read each
other's minds. One summer holiday, "Jones" the alien wants to
use their psychic forces to get rid of the wilberforces, another
alien race. The Wilberforces are really scary - they're
slimy and green and can shape-shift. They want to destroy
other planets but are trapped on earth (under the mountain) in a
semi-sleep. They too know of the twins special powers and
are beginning to wake from their sleep...and so the book
unfolds. It was also a tv series in the early 80s and I
remember hiding behind the couch in the scary bits! the
story is set in the city of Auckland, New Zealand which is on a
harbour, which may have made the person think of San Francisco
R98 Walters, Hugh [pseudonym of
Walter Hughes]. Spaceship to Saturn.
Criterion, 1967. Chris Godfrey heads for Saturn; juvenile
science fiction
Jean Little, Mine for Keeps. This has a similar plot line and a Scottie
dog. Sally has cerebral palsy and moves back home from an
institution. Her parents buy her a dog to help her adjust to
going to a regular school and make friends.
This is definitely NOT Mine for
Keeps. That dog is a Westie (West Highland
Terrier) and the mother is alive and well.
no luck so far, but Lynn Hall wrote
some books with similar themes.
Marilyn Sachs, Underdog. This is the story of a 12 year-old orphan girl
who searches for her long-lost dog. There is a Scottie on the
cover.
William Mayne, Underground Alley,
1960s. While painting
scenery for a town pageant, Patty knocks a hole in the wall of
her cellar and finds an entrance to a cave. In the cave is a row
of houses, just like the ones in the street above, but
derelict. This discovery solves the mystery of how an
alchemist several hundred years before managed to steal
wagonloads of gold tribute from the Welsh that should have gone
to the English crown
William Mayne, Underground Alley.You
are
amazing - I took one look at the book and the cover was soooo
familiar!'
Maybe - Doane, Pelagie Understanding
Kim Philadelphia, Lippincott 1962. "Having a
Korean orphan as a sister poses a problem for Penny." Less
likely - Warren, Mary Pharner Walk in My
Moccasins illustrated by Mays, Victor. The
Westminster Press, Philadelphia 1966, which seems to be about
adoption of an Indian child.
More on one suggested title - Understanding
Kim, written and illustrated by Pelagie Doane,
published Lippincott 1962. "Penny learns to accept her
newly-adopted sister Kim, a Korean war orphan. Ages 9-11." (Horn
Book Oct/62 p.422 pub.ad)
Stars for Cristy.
Cristy was a city child who went to stay with people named Todd
through a fresh-air program not her grandparents though.
The reason I suggest this is that it did have a red cover and I
took it out of the library quite a few times as well.
The answer posted to G211 is not correct since the book I am
searching for was published earlier than 1940. Nor is the
story quite right. But thanks anyway.
Dorothy Canfield, Understood Betsy, 1917. This sounds like Understood
Betsy, which has been around in many editions and
has recently been reissued. The relatives she stays with are a
great-aunt and uncle (older, so they could be remembered as
grandparents) who take her in after the overprotective aunt she
lives with in the city get sick.
This might be Understood Betsy by
Dorothy Canfield, maybe? She goes to visit relatives but
they are not grandparents.
---
Around 20 years ago while
I was in elementary school I read a book that was given away
years later. I loved that book. It was a hardback book. The
cover was red. The picture on the front was (I think a pencil
drawing) of a young girl in front of a tree tapping maple syrup.
What I remember of the story is that she lives with her two
aunts (who overprotect her from everything) until one of them
gets sick and they have to move to a warmer state. The Aunts
don't get along with their cousins but since they are the only
option they ship the girl off to the cousins who live in the
country. While there she learns to tap for maple syrup and every
once in awhile she drops some in the snow while tapping so that
it will harden and she can chew it. She also gets lost with a
friend at the fair. She gets to eat until she is full and has
several more adventures.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher,
Understood Betsy. This is the book you described. Some additional
details: Betsy doesn't know right from left when she first
goes to live with the country relatives, and at the end of the
book she escapes from a deep pit by using a fallen branch.
Dorothy
Canfield Fisher, Understood
Betsy.
Definitely the one. Available online, just do a search for
the title and it will come up under digital.library.upenn.edu/ .
Dorothy Canfield, Understood
Betsy, 1916, copyright. This sounds a
lot like Understood
Betsy with only a few details not matching;
definitely worth checking out. I did not read this book until
I was in my late 40's, but I can tell you I consider it one of
the best I have ever read. It holds up even today.
I agree, the book in
question is Understood Betsy...however, "Miracles on
Maple Hill" by Virginia
Sorenson fits some of the maple syrup-type clues,
and is also set in Vermont.
Dorothy
Canfield Fisher, Understood
Betsy. This is
most definitely the book I was looking for. Thank you!
|
Condition Grades |
Canfield (Fisher), Dorothy. Understood Betsy.
Grosset and
Dunlap, 1917. Hardcover with protected dust
jacket. G/G. $15 Canfield (Fisher), Dorothy. Understood Betsy. Grosset and Dunlap, 1917. Hardcover w/o dust jacket. G+ $10 |
 |
Ida Mae McIntyre, Unicorn Magic, 1972. I too was looking for this book for a long time. The only details I could remember were the unicorn and the straw person. I just figured it out this past fall as I searched through WorldCat. Here's the synopsis from WorldCat: "A unicorn uses his magic to foil the plot of an evil magician who tries to get the prince to marry a woman made of straw."
Oh what a wonderful site! Just discovered
it today and will be back frequently. O11 is unquestionably The
Universe Between by Alan E. Nourse. It was
published in book form in 1965, but parts of it had been
published as short stories in the 50's. I have a copy and
re-read it frequently.
That's it!! They are both correct. Your site is fantastic. I
didn't think I would ever know the names of these books so that
I could pass them along to my kids, who also love to read. Thank
you ever so much.
---
I am looking for a science fiction book I
read in the early 1960s about a girl who can go through
"thresholds" to other places. She can slip into another
dimension to move about to another locations. I have no
idea who the author is and would appreciate any assistance in
locating this book.
Madeline L'Engle, Wrinkle In Time. This may be too obvious, but isn't there
language in Wrinkle in Time about the tesseract being a
threshold between dimensions?
Madeleine l'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time,1963. Could this possibly be it? The
timeframe certainly fits, as does the general description.
Meg travels through space and time, along with her friend Calvin
and brother Charles, by means of a tesseract.
Could this be Alan Nourse's The
Universe Between? The act of moving between
dimensions is referred to there as "turning the corner", but I
think there were characters called "Thresholders".
Nourse, Alan E., The Universe Between, 1965.
Max Shulman, My Next Girl, 1946. This is the story.
Its in The Bedside Book of Humor edited by
Mathilda Schirmer, 1948
Yes, I remember this story! It is The
Unlucky
Winner, the first story in The Many Loves of Dobie
Gillis: Eleven Campus Stories by Max Shulman
(1951). The other stories in the book are She Shall Have
Music; Love is a Fallacy; The Sugar Bowl; Everybody Loves My
Baby; Love of Two Chemists; The Face is Familiar But---; The
Mock Governor; Boy Bites Man; The King's English; and You Think
You Got Trouble?
The Unlucky Winner is
definitely the story sought---I have the book right in front of
me!---but I wonder if it was published earlier with the other
title suggested, My Next Girl. Why?
The first paragraph of The Unlucky Winner is, "My next girl is
going to be honest. I don't care if she looks like a
doorknob. Just so she's honest." Dobie Gillis is the
plagiarist; Clothilde (his girlfriend) encourages his academic
dishonesty; and Thoughts of My Tranquil Hours by Elmo
Goodhue Pipgrass is the book he copies from.
I'm the one who suggested My Next
Girl, and its definitely the same story as The
Unlucky Winner. Interesting that the two anthologies
we read it in were published only a few years apart, and the
story's name was changed so quickly.
"�And He Built a Crooked House", Robert
A. Heinlein, 1941. This short story by Heinlein was
first published in Astounding magazine in February 1941. It was
reprinted in his book The Unpleasant Profession of
Jonathan Hoag in 1959. It has also appeared in
numerous anthologies. You can see a
list of them here: (Just use the "Find in Page"
function to search for "Crooked House".)
Robert Heinlein, And he Built a
Crooked House, 1941.
This is the name of the story - I think it is also the name of
the anthology.
I29 impossible 4d shape: This should be the
story "And He Built a Crooked House" by Robert
Heinlein, from the anthology Fantasia Mathematica:
being a set of stories, together with a group of oddments and
diversions, all drawn from the universe of mathematics,
edited by Clifton Fadiman, published New York, Simon &
Schuster 1958, 298 pages. Quintus Teal builds a tessaract house
for his friend Homer Bailey, but an earth tremor collapses it
into a cube. Teal and the Baileys go in, but can't find a way
out again, except for going through one of the windows, which
leads off the roof. One door opens to another planet. At one
point the three people see themselves from the back in another
room.
---
This was a sci-fi book I read in the
early 60's but could have been written possibly earlier...not
a children's book...it is about a man who lives in a world
that changes when a fog surrounds wherever he happens to be
(in the car driving or in a house, etc). It also seems
that there are mirrors involved in some way, possibly a portal
to another world. There is also a woman who seems to
know what is going on...she seems to appear at random times.
gordon r dickson, time storm,
1977. Possibly TIME STORM by Gordon
R. Dickson. I don't remember the mirrors, but I
don't believe I ever read the whole book, just the magazine
version of the first part of it.
Heinlein, Robert A., The
Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, 1942. The
reader's description of the man, the mirrors, the world changing
outside the fog, and the woman, make me think of this novella by
one of the masters of SF, RA Heinlein. Something
in a mirror is responsible for the strange coma that has
afflicted a young married woman. Her husband seeks help
from Jonathan Hoag. Towards the end, the couple is driving
away from their city, apparently on a sunny day. But if
they roll down the car windows and look out, they are driving
through a fog, and terrible things are happening in that
fog. This story is anthologized in a collection of
Heinlein stories titled 6 X H and also in a collection
called The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag.
Robert Heinlein, The Unpleasant
Profession of Jonathan Hoag, 1942.This is a short
story and also the name of a collection of shorts. The tag
line is "What if the Sons of the Bird lurked behind all your
mirrors?" I don't remember it completely, but perhaps...
Jance, J A, Until Proven Guilty. From AudioFile: A little girl is murdered, and a mysterious woman in red comes to the funeral. Both events unalterably change the life of Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont.
Not quite, but this made me think of Kit
Williams. Is Masquerade the only book
by this author?
Kit Williams did have another book --
usually appears as "Untitled" or "Kit
Williams". I think the price was a golden and
jewel bee. The cover illustration was of bees, and the
story was about Ambrose the bee keeper. It's Knopf 1984
B76 - This is almost certainly Kit Williams.
He did a book after Masquerade which when published had no
title,
the competition was to guess what the title
should be. The cover was a marquetry honeycomb with a jewelled
golden bee (the prize) on it. The title was eventually revealed
as The Bee on the Comb
This has got to be the second
find-the-treasure book by Kit Williams (the first being
the find-the-golden-hare book). It has no title, (that's part of
the puzzle) but has been called The Bee on the Comb,
Bee on Honeycomb
and The Bee Box Book among
other titles. It was published by Jonathan Cape in England and
Alfred Knopf in the USA, in 1984. The American isbn is
0-394-53817-X
I had a book written by Kit Williams
about bees, but there was no title to the book. That was
what the mystery was . . . you were supposed to solve some sort
of mystery in the book that would reveal what the title
was. If
you did it, you would get a prize.
Lee, Joanna, I want to keep my baby!, 1977. i think stumper T268 could be I
want to keep my baby! which was also made into a tv
movie with Mariel Hemingway.
I have a copy of I want to keep my baby and although
this book is very similar, it's not the same one. I am
sure the baby was a boy the book that is stumping me. In I
want to keep my baby it's a girl.
This sounds like the book UNWED
MOTHER by Gloria Miklowitz. I can't
put my hands on the book right this second, but I believe I am
correct.
Gloria D. Miklowitz, Unwed Mother. Thank you! Unwed
Mother is the book I was looking for. What a great
website. Thanks again.
V6 has to be Unwilling Vestal: A
Tale of Rome under the Caesars by Edward Lucas
White. It was published by Dutton in 1937.
THE UNWILLING VESTAL: A TALE OF ROME
UNDER THE CAESARS by Edward Lucas White,
1918.
Thanks! Sorry for the delay in
responding. This has to be it!
|
Condition Grades |
Hunt, Irene. Up a Road Slowly. Follett Publishing Co, 1966. DJ hardback. F/F. $15. |
|
This sounds like Mrs. Toosie? Tootsie? and
her family. Oh, goodness, is this the same family who
lived in an old trolley car in the country? I definitely
remember the hat episode and can picture the illustration, and
I'm sure the name was something like Toosie because that struck
me as amusing as a child.
Ha ha! Got that one! It's an old
old school reader called Up and Away with a pic
of a little blond boy waving to a man riding a circus elephant
on the front. Remember the stories "What about Willie"
a calico cat that didn't have a home and was out in the rain, "P
is for Paint", a girl wants to win paints at a birthday
party, "Wait for William" - the little boy who was slow
because he had to tie his shoe, and because of it got to ride
the circus elephant in the parade and so on?! Love
it! And I won't part with it (sorry). It was Mrs.
Toosey who had the violet hat on, and they went for a boat ride
in a rowboat that sunk. Beautiful pictures. That
particular story is adapted from The Tooseys by Mabel
G. La Rue published by Thomas Nelson and Sons. But
you're probably looking for the reader Up and Away,
Reading for Meaning - Thomas Nelson and Sons (we
have the Canada edition printed in 1958, Toronto Canada)
copyright 1957.
H4 hats of different colors: has the
original poster ever confirmed this? The suggested solution
looks pretty good.
---
Willy, a white, black, and orange kitten is looking for a home.
Tommy wants a kitten. I think at one point Willy goes into a
house and sleeps on a bed, getting the covers dirty and gets
chased out. Meanwhile, Tommy is fishing at a pond. He leaves his
line and hook at the pond and goes home. A fish is pulling the
line and Willy gets tangled up in it and there is a tug-of-war
between the cat and fish. Willy is about to be pulled under the
water when Tommy rescues the kitten, but then the kitten runs
away. Tommy has fish for dinner but can only think about the
kitten he lost. The next morning Tommy finds Willy in the
mailbox. End of story.
Stolz, Mary, illus. Uri Shulevitz, The
Mystery of the Woods. NY Harper 1964. If
the names are reversed, it might possibly be this one. "Will
and his elderly grandfather live amicably in a small house
near a wood, although Will wonders about the necessity for the
many rules of the house. One rule they break, however, is in
opening the door to admit a mewing cat and because of
Tom Kitten (named for a "cat in a book") they break another,
in entering the mysterious woods because Tom is missing. Thus,
Tom helps them discover that not all rules have to be kept."
(HB Aug/64 p.372) No confirmation of the fishing incident
though, or the mailbox.
We had this book in the mid-to-late '40s. It couldn't be the
one suggested here.
Up and Away, Reading for
Meaning series., 1958. I saw this school reader in a
used-book shop recently. The first story in it was called What
About Willie: a kitten wants a home and a boy wants a kitten.
Willie is a yellow and black kitten, the boy is called Tommy,
and the exact incident of the kitten being caught in the fishing
line occurs. No authors were given for any of the stories.
Patricia Beatty, The Nickel-Plated
Beauty. reprinted
1993, but I remember it from the '60s. Might the chickens
have been a stove instead? My copy is in storage so I
can't check the details, but your description made me think of
this story about the large Kimball family, in early-day
Washington state, trying all sorts of things to earn the money
to buy their mother a wonderful new stove (wood-burning, of
course, in those days). I can't recall the oldest girl's
name (Clarrie?), but her closest brother is Cameron. All
the chidren have dark hair and are called "the glowering
Kimballs" in the neighborhood. Among other jobs, they pick
cranberries to sell, and perhaps the chickens are a source of
eggs? An online review actually compares this book to the
Little House ones, and it does have two sequels.
Rebecca Caudill, Up and Down the
River,
1951. The episode of selling the bluing is in Up
and Down the River. Little Bonnie and Debby
send off for bluing and for colored pictures to sell to raise
money, and the book is about the people they meet and the
adventures they have selling the things. Other books in
the series are Happy Little Family, Schoolhouse in the
Woods, and Schoolroom in the Parlor.
Althy is the eldest sister, Chris is the brother, Emmy is
the second eldest sister.
Thank you! I think this must be the Rebecca Caudill book,
because when you said Althy, I remembered that this was the big
sister's name. :) I will have fun reading these all
again - I used to check them out of the kid's section in the
library all the time, until one day I went and found they (and a
lot of other older books) had been discarded! Thank you!!
Marguerite de Angeli, Up the Hill
Marguerite de Angeli, Up the Hill,1940s
de Angeli, Marguerite, Up the Hill. Doubleday, 1942. "A Polish American
family lives in a Pennsylvania mining town and keeps the ways of
the old country."
Helen Cresswell, Up the Pier,
1971. While visiting a seaside resort with her mother,
a young English girl discovers a mysterious family living on the
pier.
Helen Cresswell, Up the Pier, 1971.
I
solved my own stumper! I was reading the next stumper down the
list from mine, and it has turned out to be a book by Helen
Cresswell... and I thought, hey, that name sounds familiar...
I think that's the author of my book, too! Sure enough, I did
the research, and the book I'm remembering is called Up the
Pier, by Helen Cresswell. About to go in search of it right
away. Thank you, all!
Hutter, Donald, Upright Hilda,
illus. Barbara Byfield, NY Bobbs-Merrill 1968. Plot
description from eBay copy "A cute story about a little girl
who things that anyone who stands on their head is a fool.
When she dies her family buries her vertically on her head."
LC record says "Hilda grew in somber fashion, knew no fun
and little passion. Succumbing to a minor illness, no one now
disturbs her stillness." Name matches, rhyme scheme
matches, burial matches. No confirmation of thriftiness, except
in emotions.
Andre Norton, Star Ka'at, 1976. I'm guessing, but this sounds
close.
C108 cats v dogs: Star Ka'at
is about Jim Evans and Elly Mae Brown and their two cats
who reveal themselves as being alien super-cats and ask for
their help in a rescue mission. The star ka'at world is called
Zimmorrah and they travel to it in the sequel where killer
robots show up as villains. Couldn't find anything about a
mailman or fungus. The plot device of a boy finding a spacesuit
belonging to an alien race involved in a war was used in a
juvenile sf film not long ago, but I don't know whether it was
based on a book.
Robert Westall, Urn Burial, 1990. I'm pretty confident about
this. It was a fairly short book (closer to novella than
novel). The cats and dogs were bipedal and
human-sized. I remember the fungus particularly vividly,
as I found it very disturbing. Definitely YA rather than
children's.
C108 cats vs dogs: the movie mentioned
doesn't seem to have been based on a book, otherwise it wouldn't
seem a bad lead. Its production title was The Warrior of
Waverly Street, but it was released as Star
Kid in 1997. The opposing forces are the Trelkin
(good) and the Broodwarriors (bad). A meteor lands in a junkyard
where shy Spencer finds the "Trelkin Phase 1 Cyber Assault Suit
in need of a bio-organism to interface with", which would be
him. The Broodwarriors are also after the suit, for their
invasion plans. But no mailman, no capture in ship, no fungus
(though the Broodwarrior's weapons are creepily
organic-looking).
Evan Carroll Commager, Valentine, 1961. A possibility? "A
sentimental and rather old-fashioned novel about a shy and
awkward girl poor and orphaned, Valentine had come to a
small Southern town with her aunt-and she didn't like it at all.
When she took a job as a baby-sitter, Valentine's life changed."
Evan Carrol, Valentine. Thank you for
solving my stumper. I always thought Valentine was the title but when I tried
typing that name into Abebooks, etc. I got hundreds of books
about the holiday. I ordered the book and am looking forward to
reading it again!
Enid Blyton, The Valley of Adventure. I think that this is right, it's one of
Blyton's for certain. I remember the waterfall.
A246: Maybe Bertrand Brinley's The
New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club (1968)?
It's not fantasy, mind you. It's a sequel to The Mad Scientists'
Club. In one story, they have a hideout behind a waterfall,
where they also keep a mini-sub, and in the last story, two of
the club's members get kidnapped by the rival club and dumped on
a lake island. See Solved Mysteries under M.
I'm thinking it may be the Enid Blyton (although they're
British, not American). I'm checking that out. I
read it before 1968, so it couldn't be the more recent one.
The Valley of Adventure,
1947. Here is the blurb: ...Jack and Lucy-Ann, Philip,
Dinah and Bill Smugs and Kiki the Parrot are accidentally flown
into the unknown. It is a mysterious place- a long desolate
valley- with lizards like baby dragons, half ruined houses-
giant mountains-hidden caves and thundering waterfalls...
Yes. Definitely The Valley of Adventure.
Not, I must say, a book that holds up well. Not like Edith
Nesbit or Arthur Ransome. But easier for kids to read,
probably. Thanks.
Jeanne Williams, The Valiant Women (Arizona Saga book 1), 1980. This is the book
you are looking for. It is the first in a series of 3,
called The Arizona Saga.
(Not
California)
"A
wild and ambitious Irishman carves an empire out of the Arizona
desert with the aid of three courageous, determined women - one
Spanish, one an Indian, and one a girl burgeoning into
womanhood." The story continues in Harvest of Fury
(Talitha manages the Socorro ranch in Arizona, while she waits
for Patrick O'Shea to return from the Civil War.) and A
Mating of Hawks (Shea and his half-brother, Judd, become
bitter rivals for the love of Tracy Benoit when she comes to
live at their Arizona ranch.)
The rhyme quoted is a very old mnemoic
verse to remember the order of the zodiac. Most frequently
quoted as: The Ram, the Bull, the Heavenly Twins, /
And next' the Crab, the Lion shines, / The Virgin and the
Scales. / The Scorpion, Archer, and the Goat, / The Man who
holds the Watering Pot, / And Fish with glittering
scales. It's all over the web with no source quoted.
Elizabeth Goudge, The Valley of Song. (1951) This sounds like it could be 'The
Valley of Song'. Tabitha, the main character of Valley of Song,
has red hair. She visits a fairy world, most often entered
through a local quarry, but at least one of the main trips
involves an adventure under the sea. The visits to the
fairy world are themed around the rhyme mentioned.
Yes! I finally got a copy of the Elizabeth
Goudge book and it is the Valley
of the Song. This is such a
terrific site - thank you, Loganberry and fellow book solvers!
---
This is an old children's book,
possibly from the 60s or earlier. A young girl goes on a
journey/adventure (possibly several times) in a magical land (?
and possibly accessed through a stone or a gap with a stone?)
and meets all the signs of the zodiac one by one, including the
water bearer. Some scenes I remember: She attends an old
fashioned school with a strict but essentially kindly
teacher and one day they are in class reciting poetry. Day
dreaming, the girl recites slower than other pupils and says
"...on the wings of the wind" after everyone else has finished.
The teacher scolds her but the feelings it evokes means she
allows all the pupils to go out and play. At another time, the
teacher wants to go on this journey/adventure
herself, but she can't because she's too old. The girl
swaps places/ages with her so she can go. The girl waits by the
(stone/gap?) for her to return, and might have been crying as
she waited. The girl might be called something beginning
with T... but that could be faulty memory on my part. I
recall this being an old and obscure book even when I read it
(in the early 80s) with an old fashioned feel to it.
Goudge, Elizabeth, The Valley of Song, 1951, copyright. It is set in a village where they build
ships, and the daughter of one of the smiths visits this magical
place. They meet the zodiac signs, but for one visit she takes
the years off another girl, and believes she can't enter the
valley. There is a ship being built but there is not enough
money to finish her, they get supplies from the valley, paint
that is used for flowers and timber too.
Goudge, The Valley of Song, 1951.This is the one --
the girl's name is Tabitha, and the teacher is Dame Threadgold. From page 4: "The other children came
to an end before she did and 'wings of the wind' came ringing
out in a sudden silence."
Elizabeth
Goudge, The Valley of Song, 1951.Tabitha is able to visit a
fantasy world through a local quarry the zodiac is an
important theme.
I'm almost positive I know this one --
there was a series of books I had and my school library had
(early-mid 80's) about responsibility, perserverance,etc., the
titles were something like Let's read about or Let's
Find Out About and then the lifeskill in big,
colored letters. The illustrations were cartoon-y.
Each book featured a famous figure that exemplified that quality
- the dog bite one was my favorite - featuring Louis Pasteur,
and had a boy bitten by a dog, with great detail about how the
bite was affecting his body and how the rabies vaccine
worked. I don't remember which quality Pasteur
exemplified, however.
I know the title and author of the book
described by the person who gave the first suggestion in blue,
but I'm not sure it is the correct book. The Value
of Believing in Yourself: The Story of Louis Pasteur, a
ValueTale by Spencer Johnson M.D.
There was a series of these published in the late 70's-early
80's. This one was the "free sample" they sent you in the
mail to induce you to purchase the set. There isn't an actual
physical description of the dog-bite reaction. It is more
of a fairy tale desciption where the "Magical Soldiers" (the
vaccine) battle the "Terrible Germs". The illustrations are very
cartoonish and the text gives very little scientific/medical
description.
If the blue poster's suggestion is correct,
this may be: Johnson, Spencer The Value of Believing in
Yourself : The Story of Louis Pasteur. Pileggi,
Steven; illustrator, ValueTales Series, San Diego, Oak
Tree Publications 1976 ISBN 0916392066 Couldn't find a plot
description, though.
Ann Donegan Johnson, Valuetales series. The book about Helen Keller
is called The Value of Determination: The Story of Helen
Keller. The other titles are similar.
This sounds like the ValueTales
series. Children's biographies with titles like The
Value of Courage: The Story of Jackie Robinson and
so on. The books were tall white hardcovers. They also featured
an imaginary friend that helped make the exposition more
"kid-friendly".
Various, Valuetales Series,
1976 - 1978. This series of books teaching moral values
through biographical examples includes Helen Keller (the value
of determination, Louis Pasteur (the value of believing in
yourself, Albert Schweitzer (the value of dedication),
Christopher Columbus (the value of curiosity) and about 30
others. Published by Value Communications.
Spencer Johnson, M.D., The value of
courage : the story of Jackie Robinson, 1977. The Value of Courage
is part of the ValueTale Series. The series was published by
Value Communications, La Jolla, California.There are at least 27
titles in the series including Helen Keller (The Value of
Detemination) and Marie Curie (The Value of Learning).
I think you're thinking about Vegetable Children by Elizabeth Gordon, published by Volland in the 1930's. She also did books called Flower Children, Butterfly Babies, and Wild Flower Children, all depicting kids as those respective plants and animals, beautifully illustrated!
I am looking for 2 books that I remember
reading when I was a child. I don't have much information
except the following: they were cloth covered - one in yellow
and one in a brownish color (could've been red originally) I
believe the illustrations in both were by Cicely Mary Barker.
One book was about Flower Fairies and in particular
there was a page that featured "Hollyhock" with a corresponding
pome The other book was pictures and poems of vegetable
children...same premise as above. I am
guessing that the books were new around the 1930's or 40's.
I think the book listed in Solved Mysteries
as "Vegetable Children" by Elizabeth Gordon, is actually "Mother
Brown
Earth's
Children: Flower and Berry Babies, Vegetable and Fruit
Children" by Edna Groff Deihl
Possibly The Vegetable Thieves by Inga Moore (Viking Press, 1983). "Proud of their vegetable garden, two mice try to track down some thieves that are stealing their wares."
ZILPHA KEATLEY SNYDER, THE VELVET
ROOM, 1965.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Velvet
Room, 1965. This
sounds an awful lot like the Velvet room. "Robin and her family
have spent several years moving from place to place, trying to
find work and a place to live. When Robin's father finds a job,
all are happy but Robin. She explores the countryside near her
home, meets new friends, and discovers a secret."
Snyder, Zilphia Keatley, The
Velvet room, 1966.
Elswyth Thane, Tryst, circa 1938. The mysterious room was at
the top of the house the family were renting it belonged
to the younger son of the family who owned it. He had a
large library and the room had, as I recall, velour cushions
(possibly velour curtains as well).
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Velvet
Room, 1965. Could
this be the book? Robin finds the Velvet Room, the
library, in a deserted mansion. Her family is a migrant
family the cover of the book has a fancy key.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Velvet
Room, 1965.
Robin's family travels from place to place as her father, a
migrant worker, struggles to find employment. She longs
for security and privacy from her noisy siblings, and finds both
after a tunnel leads her to a small, beautifully furnished room
full of books in an abandoned mansion. A lovely,
suspenseful, mysterious tale.
Thank you for the cookbook! Arrived
Christmas Eve. I WILL enjoy it. Oh, and S278 is most
likely The Velvet Room by Snyder, but I'm
sure everyone said that by now!
The Velvet Room. I don't
remember very many details about this, but my older sister owned
it when I was child. I'm sure that this the book about which the
questionnaire asks. I will ask Rebeccahif she still has the
book, and if she has the author, date, and any other important
things.
The Velvet Room, Snyder, Zipha
Keatley
Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Velvet
Room, 1965. You
have all the details right, including the key. The girl is
Robin, the library is red velvet. She and her family find
work on an apricot farm but Robin longs for more. A
classic.
Zilpha Snyder, The Velvet Room. I am the placer
of this mystery. Thnaks to all! I think we have
definately got it! Very exciting. An older book stumper
mystery mentions this book but plot they described did not match
or the date.... Anyhow I did a search and have several copies
available and they had plot summaries that also match. I
had half forgotten the secret tunnel! First read this when
I was 7 so it stands to reason I am a little foggy.
---
I remember buying this book through a
book club in middle school inthe early to mid 1970s - probably
Scholastic. It was a paperback and I think the cover
might have had a lot of pink in it. The premise is a
lonely girl investigates an old, empty house nearby and finds
an old diary she reads (over time) in a window seat in this
old house.
Could be Norma Kassirer's Magic Elizabeth.
Scholastic, Inc., 1966. Features young Sally staying in
creepy old house with her Aunt Sarah, and an old doll named
Elizabeth. B&W Illustrations by Joe Krush. See more on Solved
Mysteries.
This book is probably THE VELVET ROOM
by Snyder, Zilpha Keatley. I have this book at
home, bought it in the '70's from Scholastic, and it has a pink
and white cover with a girl reading a book in a window seat.
Sounds like The Velvet Room. See
Solved Mysteries
Ventures. I distinctly
remember this textbook (containing what seemed like a full,
chapter-by-chapter version of "The Cabin Faced West") because I
"read ahead" when I wasn't supposed to and got in trouble. If it
wasn't the complete book, it was some kind of Reader's Digest
condensed version, but definitely not only one excerpt. I
remember Ann's tea party and the special blue shoes that no
longer fit. It was the fourth-grade reading text in my Catholic
school in 1972-3, and it was called "Ventures" (fifth grade had
"Vistas"). It had a blue cover with some sort of abstract
design, if I remember right, and I think it was a specifically
Catholic series in which some of the stories were
religious..."New Cathedral Basic Readers" comes to mind.
On my query "Cabin Faced West Textbook," the
notes I made the day I went to look at old textbooks say I did
see "Ventures" but did not find this story. Possible
explanations are that "Ventures" was the third grade book in the
series while "The Cabin Faced West" was in the fourth grade
book, which I have not found--in all my searches I've only
turned up one of the New Cathedral Basic Readers--or
that
I
was
looking
at an earlier edition of "Ventures" filed in the book room,
while the more recent edition was still in classroom use,
meaning it would have had to be new when I was in fourth grade,
which I doubt, as we got another new textbook that year, a
relatively rare event I remember well. (In fact, the next
year the school levy failed--but that's another story.) I
can hardly have looked at the book it was in and missed it, as
this story took up a large section.
The original full-lenght version appears as
The Cabin Faced West. by Jean Fritz,
Coward-Mccann, 1958. It was later reprinted in paperback by
Scholastic. And the various textbooks listed above contain
the story as well.... I'm filing this under the original
story name, since it's the full story that the requester was
after....
#C55--Is not solved, doesn't belong under
"Solved Mysteries," and should be moved back to the unsolved
section. I was not looking for the book The Cabin
Faced West, by Jean Fritz, which I know about, and have,
but for a specific fourth grade textbook containing this
story. The Cabin Faced West took up a good part
of the textbook, but was not the whole book, and I don't
remember what other stories were in it--it's one of those that
"I'll know it when I see it."
The Scott Foresman reader-Ventures-(1965)-Book
4 in the New Basic readers series has The
Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz as the last story
in the book. Page 396 has a letter from the author and then the
story runs from p. 397-489, followed by a postscript from the
author.The story has eight chapters and it is illustrated by
Feodor Rojankovsky. It is very lengthy! I do
not have another book copy to do a comparison and see what may
have been cut from the original. Note: I do from time to time
see Ventures featured in auctions on-line, you could
locate a copy. My 1965 edition definitely has the Jean Fritz
story. Good Luck.
To add to my previous answer regarding Ventures
Book 4 reader- the teacher's manual section of my
book states in several places that this is THE COMPLETE TEXT!
Viola! That should help!!!
I know this isn't it, but the basic plot is
quite similar to Star Beast, by Robert
Heinlein. The boy's family has what they think is an alien
pet, called Lummox, brought back from space by an explorer in a
previous generation. It turns out that Lummox is intelligent and
a member of the alien royal family, and from her perspective she
has been raising generations of the family as her pets. The
aliens are very long-lived and take a long time to reach
maturity - she was very small when the explorer picked her up
but has grown to immense size and this causes problems with the
family's neighbours etc.
J22 juvenile sf: somewhat closer is Venus
Boy, by Lee Sutton, illustrated by Richard
Floethe, published Lothrop 1955, 182 pages. SF story set in "the
colony New Plymouth, established on Venus by pioneers from
Earth ... relationship between the little boy Virgil Dare
(named for Virginia Dare, but called Johnny) and Baba, his
rare pet bouncing bear cub with the valuable blue claws and
teeth. Their understanding of each other through a clicking
kind of speech introduces Johnny to other Venusian species
who, recognizing his friendliness, cooperate to save him from
colony enemies. A bizarre world made strangely acceptable."
(HB Aug/55 p.260)
Lee Sutton, Venus Boy,
1955. As the original inquirer about this book, I wanted
to say that the second answer is definitely it!
Marilyn Sachs, Veronica Ganz. That IS the title of the
book. There's also Peter and Veronica and
the characters also show up occasionally in Sach's Amy
and Laura books. There's a later sequel called
The Truth About Mary Rose, which is about
Veronica's daughter.
Marilyn Sachs, Veronica Ganz. Just another note that the poster might want to
look at Marilyn Sachs'
website.
Sachs, Marilyn, Veronica Ganz, 1968. This was the fourth book in a series
Sachs wrote that started with Amy Moves In
(1964), and was followed by Laura's
Luck (1965) and Amy and Laura (1966).
In those books, Veronica Ganz was the local bully who terrorized
sisters Amy and Laura, but later became almost a friend to
Laura. Veronica was, of course, the star of the fourth
book, Veronica Ganz (which is the one with the
"Veronica Ganz doesn't wear pants!" taunt) and also of the fifth
one, Peter and Veronica (1969)- along with Peter,
the very boy who created that hated taunt! Yet another
book, The Truth About Mary Rose (1973) continues
the story after Veronica is a grown woman with children of her
own, and centers around her daughter.
Marily Sachs, Veronica Ganz. This book is currently in print.
Marilyn Sachs is the author of Veronica
Ganz, Peter and Veronica, etc.
Marilyn Sachs, Peter and Veronica. If I'm not mistaken, Veronica Ganz first
appears in Marilyn Sachs's Amy and
Laura. She goes on to
share top billing with her best friend in Peter and
Veronica, and she's in a few others as well. (I'm
sorry that I don't remember them all!) There's even one
about the grown-up Veronica's daughter--The
Truth
About Mary Rose.
Marilyn Sachs, Veronica Ganz. This is indeed the title. Sequels
include Peter and Veronica and The Truth
About
Mary Rose (the latter is about
Veronica's daughter). Other books about schoolmates of Veronica
and Peter include Marv and Amy and Laura.
Marilyn Sachs, Veronica Ganz, 1968. I vaguely remember this book from
when I was a child. I know of one other book about Veronica, it
had her friend Peter in it and I think there was something about
anti-Semitism - Peter was Jewish, as I remember. I think
Marilyn Sachs wrote a number of other children's chapter/young
adult books. The books seem to be more or less available, at
least as far as a websearch turns up.
Marilyn Sachs, Veronica Ganz. Marilyn Sachs wrote several books about Laura
and Amy Stern (Laura's
Luck,
Laura &
Amy, etc.). Veronica Ganz was
featured in a couple.
I think maybe this was written by an auther
named Marilyn Sachs who wrote quite a few childrens
books taking place in the city. I could be wrong, but it
seems to ring a bell.
Veronica Ganz by Marilyn
Sachs- also Peter and Veronica, The Truth About
Mary Rose.
Wow, I've never even heard of this series! It was originally
published in 1968, reprinted by Scholastic in 1987, and again
reprinted by Penguin/Putnam in 1995, and is currently out of print
again.
|
Condition Grades |
Sachs, Marilyn. Veronica Ganz. Illus. by Louis Glanzman. Scholastic, 1987. Trade paperback, minor wear, VG. $9 |
|
Here's a possibility from WorldCat: Best
day
for
every
little
girl, by Kathryn Kohnfelder Murray, drawings
by Allianora Rosse, published New York: Simon, 1960, unpaged
(probably a picture book). The subject heading is
"Holidays -- Fiction." Sorry, I couldn't come up with a
plot summary.
Hello!!! Thank you to whomever responded with The Very Best
Day For Every Little Girl by Kathryn Murray... that's
it!!! I am so excited!!! This is a wonderful Christmas
gift to me!!! Now I have to see where I can get a copy!!! Thank
you very much!!
Doris Orgel and Maurice Sendak, Sarah's
Room. Could this
be Sarah's Room? A little girl wants to go into her older
sister's room. There is nothing about sitting under a dining
room table, but there is a picture of a little girl reaching up
for a doorknob and being to short to turn it.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I looked up this book and it's
not the one. The illustrations in the book I remember are
black/white, sort-of line drawings, but the girl looks more like
an Alice in Wonderland type (long hair, kind-of wavey I think).
And there is no plot other than her wishing she wasn't so tiny.
I think she does grow tall enough by the end of the book to do
all the things she couldn't do before (like reach the doorknob,
etc...)" Somebody please solve this stumper - it's driving me
batty!"
The Very Little Girl. I
don't remember the author, but I owned this book when I was
little. It is definitely The Very Little Girl--she
couldn't reach the doorknob, see over the fence, pick up her
mother's sewing basket, but in the end she was big enough to
take care of her baby brother. Definitely published
sometime before 1965, when I got it.
This IS the book! The Very Little
Girl by Phyllis Krasilovsky. THANK YOU!!!
Phyllis Krasilovsky, The Very Little
Girl, 1953. The
Very Little Girl was written by Phyllis
Krasilovsky. She also wrote The Very Tall Little
Girl in 1969 (another possibility).
Krasilovksy, Phyllis, The Very Little
Girl, 1953 ,
reprint. "Dainty, utterly charming picture book tale of a
little girl who grows big enough to be a big sister to her brand
new baby brother." Illustrator is Ninon. Most of the 1953 copies
I see online are over $100, due to be inscribed by the
illustrator with a special one-time extra picture. There also
seems to be a revised version from 1992. There is
also The Very Tall Little Girl and The
Very Little Boy.
I don't know if this is the correct book,
but The Very Little Girl (1953) was written by Phyllis
Krasilovsky, illustrated by Ninon, and published by
Doubleday. It was reprinted in 1992 with new illustrations
by Karen Gundersheimer, so if the stumper requester has strong
memories of the illustrations, s/he'll want to examine the
original version.
Frayn, Michael, A Very Private Life. NY Viking 1968. It's been a long
time since I read this, but the plot has some similarities. The
girl, Uncumber, lives in a room where she can contact other
people by video screen, but no one ever leaves. She decides to
go out of the room and meet some of the people she has known on
screen. I think she is in a sort of commune for a while (a man
with several wives?) but decides to return to the life she
knows. On the other hand, I read it in grade 6 and it was a bit
beyond me then, so I'm not sure how readable it would be for
someone in grade 3! Here's a blurb: "Once upon a time there will
be a little girl called Uncumber." Frayn's unforgettable heroine
lives at a time in the distant future when all humanity is
divided in two. "Some people are on the inside, some are on the
outside. That's just the way the world is, Cumby," explains her
father, Aelfric. Of course it is the insiders who are
privileged, with their every single need catered to by somatic
drugs, three-dimensional holovision, piped sustenance - in
short, everything, including an increasingly prolonged life. As
for the outsiders, they can just grub along as best they can,
except when needed to help sustain the inhabitants of the
windowless houses. Unbelievably, however, all this is not enough
for Uncumber, for she is haunted by a restless and inquisitive
spirit, driven by Angst as she grows up, that refuses to be
satisfied by such devices, as a love introduced and supplied by
holovision. After dialing a wrong number one day, she espies a
strange crude fellow speaking an unknown tongue, and, smitten by
love, she sets out to find him. Here, of course, is the classic
Quest, replete with peril, suffering, and elusive rapture. Even
though our searcher is millennia removed, we can feel her fate
is ironic, we are involved and we pay her homage for her courage
in grappling with the Outside.
Frayn, Michael, A Very Private Life. I belive
this is the book I was looking for. I thank you very much.
A Very Young Rider. here was
a series called "A Very Young..." with different occupations.
Could this have been one of them?
Jill Krementz, A Very Young Rider, 1977. I beieve this is the book you are looking
for, it is part of a series of young people who have certain
talents and it does have photographs as well as the girl getting
a new horse at the end of the book. "A ten-year-old girl relates
her experiences as she and her pony train and prepare for riding
competitions.
Jill Krementz, A Very Young Rider, 1977. Definitely! You might remember the photos
of the girl brushing cobwebs out of the stable, Kym (stableman?)
braiding her horse's tail and her horse drinking Bubble-up out
of the can...and I think one of her horses was called "Fresh
Paint".
Jill Kementz, A Very Young Rider, 1977. Might this be one of Jill Krementz'
books, whose titles start with "A Very Young...?" One is
about riding, and there's also A Very Young Dancer,
among others.
Jill Krementz, A Very Young Rider, 1977. One of photographer Krementz's
book series about girls and their pursuit of such interests as
horseback riding and ballet dancing.
Krementz, A Very Young Rider. Jill Krementz did several photo books on young
girls- A Very Young Dancer, A Very Young Skater,
etc.
Don Robertson, Victoria at Nine
1979, This is "Victoria at Nine" by Don
Robertson. Victoria, the daughter of a Shaker Heights, Ohio
minister, is a shy girl who deeply loves her parents, but
consults her array of toy animals for guidance, clearly hearing
their voices. A seemingly minor injustice at school leads
Victoria's father to a rather off-the-wall condemnation of her
personal world, and he commands her to "live only in the world
of reality" henceforth. Victoria buries her toy animals and
regards them as dead. After a brief chat with the church
secretary (I think) and a carved wooden owl at her grandfather's
house, Victoria figures out a way to explain things to her
parents.
THIS IS IT!!!! Thank you SO MUCH!!! Seriously...this is a huge
delight for me...wherever did you find this info? I thought it
was lost forever...
I read it the year it came out -- it
appeared in the new books section of our public library -- and
never forgot it. I am so glad to be able to help! Happy Xmas.
Your memory of "tarpin et pindar" tells me
this has to be Elizabeth Enright's fabulous Gone
Away Lake, a Newbery Honor Book!! The abandoned
homes are just right! Even Tarquin et Pindar carved in the
stone. I believe the lightbulbs going out is a memory of another
book.
Roberts, Willo Davis, The View From
the Cherry Tree,
1975. I think this might be it. The main character, Rob or
Robby, collects spiders (that may be where the requester got the
word "spider") and they play an important part in the solution
to the book. It is mainly a mystery about a hated neighbor lady
who is murdered and Rob sees it happen but no one believes him.
Also, there is a scene in the book where he puts ketchup on
himself to make her think he hurt him badly after hitting him
with a broom, I think. And, near the end, he does break into her
house but to solve the mystery of who killed her. Anyway, worth
a
shot.
As for D11: Dolls and Kids switching
places, I remember this book, but not the name, so that's not
very helpful. I believe Mr. Moon had a doll store/hospital, and
the dolls had been custom made or repaired there. He was
definitely the bad guy. If I stop trying so hard, maybe I'll
remember more.
I think the answer to book-stumper D11 is The
Village of Hidden Wishes by David Fletcher.
Fun site! :)
Thank you and the reader who replied with the title--that IS the book!!! What a wonderful Web Site this is! My sister would love to get this book (she was the one that Emailed you earlier, and would like to know if you have a copy of it, since it was because of your web site that we know what the book is!!)
David Fletcher, The Children Who
Changed
Hi Harriett, someone posted a possible title and author for my
search, of The Children Who Changed by David
Fletcher. The title doesn't sound familiar, but I tried to
look it up to check, but can't find anything on that book
either. I'll keep trying. Thanks.
---
David Fletcher, The Village of Hidden Wishes, 1960.
Thanks for helping me find this book, consider it solved.
It is, indeed, by David Fletcher, but the title is The Village
of Hidden Wishes, not The Children Who Changed, and I now
have a copy. Thanks again, I have been trying to find this
book for years.
David Fletcher, The Village of Hidden Wishes,1960. I
hadn't given up on finding my book. Someone had suggested
David Fletcher as the author, and I kept googling until I found
this: The Village of Hidden Wishes. I am not certain yet,
but the description sounded like it, and I have ordered a copy.
David
Fletcher, The Village of
Hidden Wishes The Children Who Changed, 1960-1961. I
just discovered that David Fletcher wrote two books about
sisters Lucy & Tessa and their dolls, Mabel &
Margaret. The first half of each book is identical but the
second half is completely different. Village was published by
Pantheon Books in New York in 1960 and illustrated by Dorothea
Stefula. Children was published by Michael Joseph LTD in
London in 1961 and illustrated by Belinda Hodson. I just
acquired Village today and it seemed familiar so I searched my
collection and discovered Children. I read both of them and
discovered where they were the same and where they were
different. I have found several books reprinted under
different titles but never hybrids like these.
A Village in Normandy. Published in 1968 by Bobbs-Merrill, French and English text. Author's name is given as Laurence--no idea whether that's the first or last name.
Donald R. Gallo (editor), Visions:
nineteen
short
stories
by
outstanding writers for young adults, 1987.
Except for the Burger King story, this seems to be the book
you're decribing (amazing memory, by the way!) The stories you
mention are "Shadows" by Richard Peck, "Good Girls" by Fran
Arrick, and "What Happened in the Cemetery" by Norma Fox Mazer.
Hi, I'm the original poster for A90. I was just periodically
checking the site and I am so happy to see someone has
identified this anthology for me. It is, indeed, Visions
by Donald Gallo. Thanks so much!
Could this be Leo Mero's, Jack &
Jill Visit the Zoo (Whitman Publishing,'40)?
Check out the comments on the Solved Mysteries page.
Barbara Shook Hazen, A Visit to the
Children's Zoo. I
still have this one somewhere- a Little Golden Book with a
yellow cover. The zoo featured is definitely that in
Central park, before it was revamped in the 80's. My copy
was from the early 70's, but it wasn't the first printing.
I'm still looking for this myself, and have
been wondering if it was a knock-off of the Elsa Beskow books
like Peter's Adventures in Blueberry Land some of
which were translated in the late 1920s (more just
recently). The format is very similar, and the art style
is close to what I remember, as well as the basic plotline. In
fact, if only Elsa Beskow had done a book about a little GIRL
having fantastic adventures, instead of Ollie meeting frost
people and Peter meeting forest people, I'd be pretty sure it
was my book. But no.
M67 maria in the meadow: well, it's NOT Joan
in Flowerland, by Margaret Tarrant, the
pictures don't match (though the title rings a distant bell).
The illustrator might have been Ida Bohatta (or someone
influenced by her) since I've seen a mushroom person by her who
is a mushroom with a face on the stalk, rather than little
people with mushroom-cap hats like the Beskow illos.
Lundberg, Lucie (illustrator), A
Party in Fairyland (maybe!). Well, I'm pretty sure
I know the illustrator and publisher - now if only I
could confirm the title! I found a book called Linda's
Curious Toys, trans. D.M. Priestley, illustrated Lucie
Lundberg, published Litor n.d. and realised right away it was
the illustrator I'd been looking for. Talking to another
bookdealer I found out that Litor had also published a book
called A Party in Fairyland which sounds very
promising, but there aren't any copies of it available, so I
can't confirm whether it's the same illustrator or what
the plot is. It's the best lead I've had so far, though.
Caiden, E. (english text), A Visit to
Flower-land.(1960s) Wow, I've identified this and
found a copy, both at once. I was wrong about one major point
- the character is actually a little boy called Peter, who
goes blackberry picking and is found by a fairy girl who
shrinks him to fairy size. The rest of the book is just as I
remember it, and it's a fairy wedding that is the cause for
feasting. Now it's only the long-haired princess and the
pickpocket book left!
I recall a similar plotline with an Irish
Setter (named Copper?) who ends up in an animal shelter after
the human father of Copper's family is killed in a car crash.
Would love to locate this book again.
Gene Smith, Ted Lewin (illus.), The
Visitor, 1971, New
York, Cowles Book Co., ISBN: 0402140168, 9780402140160.
"When his master dies, Sassafras, an Irish setter, becomes a
permanent resident of a kennel."
Gene Smith, The Visitor, 1971,
copyright. Someone solved it for me - I see it posted on
the archive site. I wanted to notify you it is solved!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!! I cannot thank you enough!
Goll, Reinhart W. / G. O. James., The Visitors from Planet Veta, 1961. Book Description: Philadelphia: Westminster Press, (1961) Greenie, Beanie, and Teenie just arrived from Veta in blue jacket with green drawing identical to boards 8vo 116 pp. . Juvenile Hardback. Suzy and Sandy hope for their tomato plant to grow into a giant tree, and, surprise, during the night three children descend from their spaceship and the fun begins. A cheerful science fiction fantasy for middle elementary children. There are other books about Planet Veta by Reinhart Goll.
Richard Peck, Voices After Midnight.
Richard Peck, Voices After
Midnight. Chad and his brother and sister find they
have the ability to see into the past while visiting New York
for the summer. They interact with two teenage "ghosts" in
the house they're staying in. In the end they rescue the
"ghosts" from a birdcage-like elevator in the house. A
freak snowstorm has knocked out the electricity and they are
trapped in the elevator in a freezing house. The children
rescue them and find that they turn out to be their ancestors.
Richard Peck, Voices After
Midnight, 1989. Details match exactly.
Richard Peck, Voices After Midnight,
1989. Thank you! That's the one! I wanted to read it
again and it was driving me crazy when I couldn't find it!
Rhoda W. Bacmeister, Voices in the
Night. Abou ben
Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Bacmeister, Voices in the Night. Wow- I really
think this is it. I cannot find a description or image anywhere,
but this title and author just sound very, very right. I have
ordered it through our library system (it is in another town,
but they will get it for me) and will let you know. Thanks so
much to whoever gave that response!
Solved!! Just read it from the library. This is it! Thanks
Would that be David Craigie's The
Voyage of Luna 1 about the first flight from earth
to the moon?
The Voyage of the Luna I, by David
Craigie (pseudonym of Dorothy Craigie), published London,
Eyre 1948, 252 pages "The account of the flight through
space by a rocket ship, the wonder of the night sky - its
beauty and terror - and breathless adventures at the
termination of its journey - the moon. Those who like the
thrills and adventure of this kind of fiction will enjoy the
story of two young stowaways, Jane and Martin Ridley on a
rocket ship to the moon. Mad as the story is there is
scientific fact behind it and the story is clear and
credible." (BRD 1949)
A. E. Van Vogt, Black Destroyer, 1939. The plot sounds similar to
Van Vogt's Black Destroyer, a short story - a cat-like alien
that is made of energy and can project itself through space. But
the cat is male, not female, and there's no connection to Star
Trek.
Space cat. Space dog? Yes, I
think that's it! A little googling reveals that Van Vogt
compiled "Black Destroyer" with some other stories into a
novel called Voyage of the Space Beagle (!!!)You're
right, it was a male. And I suppose it wasn't the precursor of
Star Trek, although it sounds pretty Star Trekky to me -- they
were always inviting aliens on board only to find they were
trouble (tribble?). HOWEVER, "Space Beagle" IS,
apparently, the precursor to the movie "Aliens" -- someone
says Van Vogt actually sued and won on that. So I was
close. Fascinating. I suppose it's not a
children's book, per se, but it's certainly the stuff I
devoured as a child. Thanks -- this was fun.
---
The Book I am looking for is a Science Fiction Book published
sometime prior to 1965. I know I read it when I was a
junior or senior in High School. That would be
1963-1965. The book was a hard bound book. It
concerned a space ship that left earth, went somewhere in space
and then on the return voyage, it became clear that a female
alien had left eggs to incubate in the humans on the ship. She
may have come back on the ship, but I'm not sure about
that. It sounds a lot like "Alien", but the publishing
timing is all wrong. It seems to me that the viewpoint of
the alien was not violent - she just needed some where warm to
put her eggs. I have seen the "Alien" movie and it
certainly spurred my memory, but the story isn't quite
right. I would LOVE to have this mystery solved.
It's not "The Cookoo's Egg" either.
A. E. van Vogt, Voyage of the Space
Beagle (also
paperbacked as Mission Interplanetary), 1939
(magazine) or 1950 (book collection). A.E. van Vogt's
VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE is generally considered to be a
strong (though inititally unacknowledged)"inspiration" for the
movie ALIEN. The book version was first published in 1950,
but three of the four stories comprising the book had been
published in ASTOUNDING magazine in 1939-1943 (and have been
individually anthologized from time to time as well). The
proto-ALIEN-plot story is the first one in the book, Black
Destroyer.
Oh My Gosh! I'm am so happy!! In such a short time,
someone came up with the Author and Title of the SCI FI book
that has been on my mind since high school. I am so
pleased to have the solution. I went right out to a local
used book store and low and behold, they had a hardback edition
which I was able to purchase for a very reasonable price.
I am enjoying re-reading this story after so many years.
Thank you so much for this service. I have recommended it
to all of my reading friends.
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3/15/13
