| Pre-teen book, Underground Railroad Tunnels |
[Jul. 15th, 2008|08:59 pm] |
In school (late 80's & early 90s) we read a book about a family that moves into a house that was once used on the Underground Railroad for escaped slaves. In the book there is a boy with a tiny flashlight he always carries with him who goes through one of the tunnels. He hears/ sees something unusual, like a ghost. His father investigates and tells the boy never to go their again. I think the boy had a younger sister too. I believe the title had the word "chornicles" in it. FOUND: Virginia Hamilton, The House of Dies Drear |
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[Jul. 4th, 2008|10:59 am] |
Ok this story was about a girl whos little brother gets a stamp on his hand from a vampire which is slowly withering him away and no one can figure out whats wrong except this boy she goes to school with who has grey eyes and lives in a mansion up the road on a hill. He's a witch and comes from a long line of female witches 2 or 3 of which he lives with. Somehow they trick the psychic vampire into releasing her brother. Also I think The author may be either British or Australian. |
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[Jun. 30th, 2008|09:08 pm] |
Hello, everyone. :D
The books (I remember there was two out already when I read them) was aimed at young adults and a fantasy of sorts. It starts with a boy finding a stone and being sent into another world, in this world there was seven special stones that of course the evil baddies are after. At the same time there's another set of characters from this world, a boy (who I believe is a knight or something close in that nature) and a girl (either that or the boy I mentioned) and at one point they have the stones. But after being chased and stopping near a river I believe something happens in where the girl (or boy) accidentally sends off one of the stones (the blue one?) to the same world where the boy had come from where and this time a girl finds it.
In one of the books the boy that was brought to this world gets ends up somewhere (a prison?) where he meets another boy where at one point it's shown that the boy had, had his tongue cut out.
I read it somewhere within the sixth or seventh grade so it was in '00-'02.
FOUND: Tales of the Nine Charms by Erica Farber and JR Sansevere |
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[Jun. 30th, 2008|01:10 am] |
Hello! I've been trying to find a book for a while without any success.
It was about an aunt or grandma I believe, and it contained that character's recipe for a chocolate cake made with tomatoes. It's a children's book and illustrated, primarily in black, red and green as far as I can remember. I was in the first or second grade, so target age is around 6-7 years old and I must have read it in '93 or '94. Any help is greatly appreciated, it was such a cool book and I'd love to know what it was.
Edit: Found. Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco. Thank you! |
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| fantasy, juvenile fiction, possibly a series or trilogy or something. |
[Jun. 28th, 2008|05:04 am] |
This was a fantasy book I remember reading probably in the mid-90s (and I assumed that was around when it was published).
The main characters are the children of a family (maybe two families? one family and a friend?) and they are intrigued by a neighbor, who turns out to be a (good) sorceress. They are led into some adventure that I think involves another realm, and end up saving the universe, etc. Things I remember: at one point the sorceress needed to activate protections for her house; the protections collapse so that everything within the bounds of the protections are basically frozen and can't be interacted with (I think? and she was within the boundaries at the time, so she was lying on the ground but they couldn't touch her directly. I don't know how they broke her out of it, though). Also, the other thing which may be more useful is that after the kids return from their adventure, the cops knock on the sorceress's door, because they had been missing. The sorceress gives them a tea of what is called "World Leaf" which puts them in a trance so they can tell them stuff like "we've all been voluntarily away and we've done the world a great service so plz don't bother about this kthx" and the police would recognize the fundamental truth of what they are saying and not question them later even when they're out of the trance.
And I think there was a sequel, or maybe the two things I remembered already happened in separate books, I dunno. >.> In any case, I guess one could say there were shades of "a wrinkle in time" in the premise....
Also, the author was probably female. For some reason I thought that it was ljsmith (I remember being surprised when I "made the connection", since this book targets a generally younger audience than ljsmith's books), but when I tried to check up on this before posting this, I realize I must have deluded myself at some point, haha.
FOUND: Night of the Solstice/Heart of Valor, by LJSmith after all orz orz orz |
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| Young Adult Fantasy- At least 10+ years old |
[Jun. 24th, 2008|02:41 am] |
You guys are amazing when it comes to YA novels. I read so much when I was younger, I can't keep them straight, so you guys really are a godsend.
I remember there were at least two books in this series, and it's a YA fantasy novel. It's about magic, but in a contemporary setting.
The story starts with a girl. The magic in the world of this story has to do with the way the characters relate to the world around them. The girl can talk to trees, and her wand reflects that. I think it was a wand made of rowan that she had to leave in moonlight for a set ammount of time? I don't remember the details that well.
Later, she is joined by a boy who has an affinity with mechanical things. He can talk to cars and his magic wand is reflects that. It's a car antenna. I seem to remember that the kids had to be given the wands freely or somthing like that, and the boy had to find a car that would give him somthing he could use?
They have the usual save-the-world kind of adventures. I clearly remember one part where the girl is out in a forest and the pine trees are angry with her. She kicked up some pine needles, ruining the art the trees in the forest had been working on for years.
I think in the second book, they travel to another world that is dark and sinister? That or somthing in their world changes and becomes dark. I remember they are sneaking around this city where the cars are not freindly, and the boy has a hard time with his magic.
Some of my details may be a little mucked up, but I appreciate any help you could give me in tracking these down again :D
Found!
So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane, first book of the Young Wizards series |
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| Looking for 3 books - all FOUND! |
[Jun. 16th, 2008|07:13 pm] |
1. It's set in the early 20th century, I think, and the main character is a teen girl who is interested in things like archaeology and paleontology. There's a discovery of dinosaur bones nearby, and she wants to go, but her dad's like, uber-religious. The main detail I remember from this book is that they're somewhere, and her dad starts in on the usual "It's Eve's fault humans were kicked out of the Garden of Eden", and fed up, she responds, "At least Eve took responsibility for her own actions instead of blaming others, like Adam!" Found it myself! "Ghost Horses", by Pamela Smith Hill
2. A ghost story, the main characters being two preteen boys. One in modern day, and one back in the early 1900s. They wind up switching places, I think. Mostly, I remember that the boy from the past loves this one marble game, and that when current!boy goes back in time, there's a part when they're riding in a brand new, top of the line car, and everyone's freaking out about how fast it's going - which is, like, 20mph. Found! "Time for Andrew", by Mary Downing Hahn
3. Another ghost story, this time with the ghost being Civil War era. I think he might've been a cadet at VMI, but I'm not sure. Anyway, in modern times, a boy and his sister go to stay with an elderly relative (I think) in Virginia. Boy discovers ghost, etc. There might've been a treasure involved, but the main detail I remember is that the non-ghost boy is named Benjamin. He's called Benji at the beginning, but decides that's too "little kid", and starts to go by Ben. Found! "Ghost Cadet", by Elaine Marie Alphin |
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[Jun. 13th, 2008|02:52 pm] |
This may have been from a novel, or from a book of short stories.
It was about two sisters. I cant remember much, but one scene stands out in my mind. The two girls are painting, I think on their doll house, just before they had to go out to a really fancy woman's house for tea. They realize they dont have turpentine to get the paint off their hands and they panic. To avoid going to this fancy house with paint on their hands, they put on little white gloves. The older sister makes it clear to the younger sister that she is NOT to take off the gloves for any reason. They get to the fancy house and no one else is wearing gloves, but they keep theirs on. Something happens, I dont remember what, but eventually they end up eating strawberries and neither of them know what to do with the tops of the strawberries so they end up just holding them in their hands, staining their gloves. When they get home they start crying to their mother because of how upsetting the whole thing was and because the gloves were stuck to their hands. They get some turpentine and everything works out in the end.
Anyone? This has been bugging me for a few weeks now and I'd really like to know!
Found: Got it! It's "Angela, Private Citizen" by Nancy K. Robinson. Thanks everyone!! |
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| This is going to sound funny... |
[Jun. 13th, 2008|02:02 pm] |
Because I'm almost twenty-three and read this book when I was about nine, but it's been bugging the heck out of me and so I figured it'd be worth a shot to ask, evne though I will be eternally embarrassed at how YA it is. :o)
It had something to do with horses, and I believe the cover was pale blue with a horse and two girls, one blonde, one redhead [?] on either side of the horse. I think the title was written in rope, like that you'd use to reign in [?] a horse? Anyway.
The book was about this girl and her BFF who were supposed to leave for horse camp for the summer, and her friend was trying to rescue her kitten from a tree [I think the kitten's name was Sprinkles?] and she fell out and broke her leg, thus not being able to go away to camp. The main girl ended up going anyway, and met a girl named Libby, I think, who she befriended. I don't remember much else besides, like, there was a Palomino horse which everyone coveted, and some mean blonde girl who was older maybe?
I'm sorry, I suck at this, but any help would be so very appreciated! :o) |
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| Help a Bitch Out? |
[Jun. 10th, 2008|11:16 pm] |
I'd take this to the Smart Bitches, but it's not romance, and I haven't read enough romance to have forgotten books from my youth.
It's fantasy, some kind of quest story, and I remember the Princess was called Goodness and an enchantress cursed her by her name and she became so good that she'd give everything she had away to help people. The enchantress was cool and evil and possibly had green eyes and black hair, but I may be making that up. She was definitely fairly young and evil.
The Princess's brother and some of his men went on a quest for something or another (to defeat the enchantress?), and I think he'd been cursed to turn into a crow at night or some nonsense? This all came out when him and his crew are held in prison underwater by either mermen or people who could just live underwater. They could breathe because they were given some shells or something that could help them breathe underwater.
This is the part I remember the best: they're held prisoner (again) and they're forced to tell a story, each person only giving a few sentences and either a good chunk of the book was this story, or I just really liked it.
Any help?
ETA: FOUND! It was 'The Dragon Hoard', by Tanith Lee
Thank you, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) therck and ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) whatwasthatbook! |
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| Two Children/Young Adult Books = One Found, One Still Unknown |
[Jun. 2nd, 2008|10:27 pm] |
Hi. I am returning with two requests, I hope someone can help me. I've had great success with this community before.
Book #1
This first one is very vague, and I apologize for that. I read it when I was a preteen, which would be around 1990 - 1992 range. It was a children's book about a cowboy. The book had a lot of blue snakes in it. At least I think they were snakes. This cowboy had to rescue a lady from something... maybe he lasso'd a tornado with the snakes? I think the lady was a cowgirl, too. I really can't remember. It might have been two books with the same character in it. It had many illustrations in it. If I had to say a name, I'd pick 'Bill' for the cowboy, but I've had no luck searching for the book with that name.
It's very vague, I'm so sorry. I read this book a very long time ago.
Book #2 = FOUND!! The Fledgling by Jane Langton!!
I'm more confident about finding this second book. It was a young adult book read around 1992 - 1995, paperback. It was about a young girl who befriends a goose. The goose is injured and she takes care of it. The goose lives in a pond nearby her house, and she gets to go flying with the goose at night. A neighbor does not like the goose, and gets a hunting permit so that he can shoot it. The goose ends up giving the girl a special present before the neighbor shoots it. The girl loses the present and grieves for the goose, then finds the present again. It is a small ball, which is actually a magical globe of the world. This makes the girl happy.
Wow, that synopsis didn't make much sense either.
Anyway, if anyone can help me to identify one or both of these books, I would be so very, very happy and grateful. Thank you in advance for any help! |
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| teen lit with divorcing lesbian moms. |
[Jun. 27th, 2008|05:12 am] |
I'm looking for a book I've never actually read, one I heard about from someone who didn't remember the title.
From what I understand, it's a juvenile or young adult novel about a teenage(?) boy who is the son of lesbian parents. The novel details the separation of the parents and the struggle the son endures as a result of being closer to his non-biological mom, who in the course of the marriage, was never made a "legal" parent. The person who told me about it also said that things were complicated (futher) by the non-biological mom's alcoholism (which contributed to the 'divorce' of the parents in the first place.)
Sound familiar to anyone?
Edit! Found: Between Mom and Jo by Julie Ann Peters. Thank you!!! |
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[May. 26th, 2008|01:33 pm] |
Okay, this one may be really tricky, but I'll give it a shot:
This was a young-adult level book-- it had chapters and a lot of words but also a few illustrations (I think)-- that I read when I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s, but that I think must have been published in the 60s (maybe earlier).
There were two or three girls who got shipwrecked or somehow else ended up on an island. I don't remember any of the particulars about what happened to them except that they met this man who had been living on the island for a long time. He was missing a toe. There was some intrigue surrounding how he lost his toe, and it eventually turned out that he had previously worked on a farm and lost the toe in some kind of farming accident (chopped it off with a shovel or something).
A lot of time was spent talking about the different things they did and found on the island. I really don't remember much about it... but maybe someone else does... thanks! |
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| YA series - boarding school in Canada FOUND! |
[May. 20th, 2008|10:06 pm] |
This was a series of YA books I read in the mid to late 80s, I think. It was a series of four and I believe I got them at one of those Scholastic book fairs at school that we all lived for.
It revolved around two boys (roommates) at a boarding school in Canada. One had dark hair and one was blonde, one was a trouble maker and one was studious. There was a girls finishing school (run by a little old lady) across the highway and the boys would frequently sneak over to visit their female counterparts. (They were also roommates, of course.)
I honestly don’t remember much about the specific plots to any of the four books. It was the usual making-trouble-for-the-headmaster shenanigans. I think one might have involved a school election? So, basically, every YA school-focused stereotype you can imagine!
I believe each book was a different color. For some reason I remember that one of the covers was a mustardy yellow. And the cover illustration was always of the two boys. And it’s possible that all the titles involved the name of the school? Or the two boys names? Or something else that brought all the titles together...but I’m not 100% certain about that.
I realize I’m not giving you much to go on but I remembered them a few years ago and it has been driving me insane since.
Thank you so much!
Found!! It’s the Bruno and Boots series by Gordon Korman! You all are amazing and I can’t thank you enough for allowing my brain to finally shut the hell up over this! |
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| Giant peanut butter sandwich |
[May. 20th, 2008|12:44 pm] |
I am looking for a book that I friend and I both remember from our childhood. We were born in the mid 70s so I'm the publication date would be in the early 80s or before.
The book was a silly children's story with illustrations and it involves the construction of a giant peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so big that we think there we remember a scene with a helicopter lifting a slice of bread.
Some initial google searching has only come up with a book by Nadine Wescott called Peanut Butter and Jelly and making a sandwich as big as a table with help from elephants. Based on the descriptions, that is not the book I'm thinking of. I don't remember any of the text, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't written in rhyme as Wescott's book is.
Edit: Found by a member in one of the other communities I posted this in. It's Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord and Janet Burroway |
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| Sci-fi anthology, kid-oriented?, multiple authors |
[May. 17th, 2008|10:02 pm] |
I only remember a few stories from it.
This one's in the anthology Some of the Kinder Planets. Thanks everyone for all your help!
One, which I believe had something to do with the title of the book itself, involved a girl(?) who built a model of the solar system and watched Mars eating pomegranate seeds. Yeah.
From down here found as Mindstorms: Stories to Blow Your Mind, apparently the top one was from a different book?
Another was a guy who accidentally picked up an alien suitcase and started growing another arm.
Another was about time travel and something called the Burgess Shale. Don't exactly remember what but it involved trilobites.
Another was a couple of kids on vacation and the little brother...turned into a tornado? Fuzzy on that.
Any help would be appreciated, it's been driving me nuts. |
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| Which witch? |
[May. 14th, 2008|03:05 pm] |
I remember two books about witches that I absolutely loved when I was a child -- one of them I managed to find by myself (The Witch Who Saved Halloween, by Marian T. Place), but the other still eludes me. They're very connected in my memory, but probably just because of the subject material.
This book is about a young girl who is a witch and lives with an older, very mean witch. I think she wants to go to school, but the old witch won't let her, because only human children go. I believe there's something about either the young girl, her friend, or the older witch being turned into a teapot or a teacup. The title probably had "witch" in the title, but other than that, I've got nothing.
I know that's not much to go off of, but any help would be greatly appreciated! |
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| Missing nonfiction? |
[May. 7th, 2008|09:44 pm] |
Okay. So, about two? years ago, I read this really good book about marriage. It was a history of marriage and divorce laws, as well as social attitudes toward them, from the Middle Ages up to modern day. There was a particular focus on the idea of love based marriage and its relatively recent development. The book was roughly chronological in presentation.
The author was a woman- Allison someone, perhaps? I think it was some kind of A name. It was geared towards the lay audience- I think I may have seen the author on the Today Show- but it was a pretty well researched, entertainingly written book.
And, uh, the cover was reddish. I think.
Any clues?
Found! Marriage, a History by Stephanie Coontz |
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| Found! Victorian/Edwardian Children, Orphans, canals. |
[May. 2nd, 2008|11:45 am] |
FOUND - "Thursday's Child" by Noel Streatfield. You guys are wonderful!
Dear "What Was That Book" community, who have been most inspiring and dangerous - I'm going to have to buy a new bookcase for all the ones I was inspired to get from other people's posting.
I saw this on a series in England back in the 1970s, then read the book. I think the book may have been published in the 1900s but can't remember whether it was from the time period or written a lot later. It was written for older children.
Setting - English countryside, somewhere around 1900 but it could be a bit earlier.
Three children - a sister and younger brother, and another girl, are in an orphanage. I think they had to give up their "street' clothes and wear orphanage uniforms complete with underwear - this is important later. The girl gets a job outside as a maid at a big house. She is given money to buy some clothes from the stock at the orphanage, and incurs the wrath of the orphanage mistress by stating that as she is paying for the clothes she can pick which ones she wants.
Some time later on her day off she comes back to visit the sister and brother, and brings them oranges.
At some point underclothes which were taken from the sister and brother are stolen from the storeroom, and the sister has to show her bloomers to the orphanage mistress to prove she isn't wearing her old, fancy ones.
There are barges and canals involved - I think perhaps the sister and brother run away. I also vaguely remember that they probably weren't supposed to be in the orphanage to start with, but I can't remember why or why not.
It was made into a series and shown in the 1970s (Sunday afternoon - the serial, then Dr Who, then tea time. Oh childhood memories).
*bambi-eyes* Help, please? |
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[Apr. 27th, 2008|12:49 am] |
I had great success with my first "lost" book, so here goes.
I believe this is a YA book. I read it several years ago, but I believe it was older. Perhaps there was a blueish green tone to the cover.
What I remember is the main character is petrified of water, but is required to take swimming lessons or complete some sort of swim so that she can graduate from high school. She gets pushed in a pool at a party or something and starts drowning and a boy rescues her, but starting with that incident she starts having flashbacks as though she were this other girl in the past.
The details are rather vague and I believe it was rather unpopular. However, I have faith in you guys.
Found! The books is Dreadful Sorry. Thanks to allofthewords. |
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curious
hopeful