Category: Name That Book Request

The first is a library book from my childhood that I checked out often. It was about a dragon, who perhaps couldn’t shoot fire? But then I think he learned how to shoot fireworks instead? There was probably a little prince involved, I can’t remember the details. But I loved that book.  The publication date must’ve been somewhere from late 50s to early 70s. All the illustrations were in gray and purple and white. Very 60s chic.  The second book was a middle grade spooky Book about a little girl who makes friends with the ghost girl whose  lives in her backyard. Or perhaps up in the attic? Anyway, there’s an iconic scene where the little girl who is alive is trying to eat blackberries, and the ghost girl obviously can’t eat them. The twist in the book is when you realize that the little ghost girl was killed in a fire in her house, and is still haunting that space. It was such a great book, I checked it out from the library often! Anyways, any assistance would be appreciated. Thank you so much!

Hello! This feels like a long shot in more ways than one, because not only is my memory of the book very hazy, and remembered details limited, but the book itself is possibly from outside of the time period listed on your website. All I remember of the book is as follows: I read the book some time between 2008 and 2012 (this may be around the time the book was published, but I dont remember) at my local public library, the main character was a once proud dragon who had been magically transformed into a dragon, and there is a scene in the book where he holds logs in his arms for several hours as a test of endurance.  The remaining details I can recall are all ambiguous, I remember at some point there being a large abandoned castle made of either ice-like crystals or crystal-like ice, I remember there being a large tree that some people(maybe elves) lives in, and I remember a fantasy world map at the front of the book. 

1)  A sci-fi novel set in what seems to be a school, with various children who maybe have physical difficulties / differences and maybe superpowers? At the end, I seem to recall we discover (along with the child protagonist) that there has been a nuclear war and this is a closed community of survivors while the outside world is devastated.

2) A fantasy novel set in a watery world of islands inhabited only by women. I think they had purple skin (?) and travelled to each other’s islands by boat. At the end of the book, the men arrive and basically ruin everything by bringing war.

Back in the sixties, when I was a kid, there was a book about this boy in  the far north (Scandanavia?) whose family all dies one night. Father drowned at sea, Mom hit by a tree out in a storm looking for a doctor for sick little sister, who dies. Kid is sent to live with various families in the village, and everything he does after turns eventually into how a Christmas tradition comes about. (Like making toys for each family he lives with, putting them in their socks, etc.) I’d love to find that book for my grandkids.

Born 1972 so this book would have been available 1982-1985 ish — Ballet teen book /YA one character named Lupe (mexican?) all others were white girls bulimia theme having to purge to be skinny enough to be in the ballet company remember it as being very sad. did someone die from bulimia? Would love to figure this out! thank you!

 It’s been about 30 years that I’ve been trying to find this book again; I read it for the first time in either the first or second grade (so the late 80s, early 90s, but I think it was published before then). I never got to finish it, because it was a school library book that was immensely popular among my peers and I after my teacher had read a chapter for story time, and I was never able to check it out again. The parts I remember most clearly are: The book cover, either the cover itself or the inside cover, had a picture of a blond boy in a sailor suit that I feel was common in the early 1900s. This boy was the protagonist, and the only other part I recall is that a canary came to his bedroom window and whisked him away to what I believe was a fantasy world where he had multiple adventures. It may have been part of a series.

I have described this book to children’s librarians in several states and just received blank stares.  Young boy, 99% sure named Fulton, invents a perpetual motion machine by accident. Military types show up and want to steal/pay him for the plans, it involves a huge amount of sugar in the manufacturing process, chaos ensues. I read it in grade school in the 70’s if I wasn’t slipped acid unknowingly.

So this book I barley remember but here’s some of what I do remember -I’m pretty sure it’s in the Bay Area like San Francisco or Oakland -the main character is a woman (can’t remember her age but is maybe a teenager or a young adult) -she has powers and goes to this house because this man says he can help her use them and figure them out -there are other people in the house in the same situation as her -I’m pretty sure they’re there willing and not kidnapped but if they try to leave then the man gets mad -I know that all of them leave the house because the man has a plan to use their powers for something bad -they run off and are at a train station in Oakland at night I was reminded of it when I watched the OA on Netflix and I’d feel dumb if it was a book that the OA was based off of but it’s very similar to that.

I read it in my late teens, so mid 2010’s. I lost my book collection a few years back and it’s driving me crazy trying to find this book!!!!! I believe it had a black cover with a girl, or just eyes, on it. The story follows a young girl whose dad is a sailor or fisher I believe, and she is picked on, maybe described as chubby, and her dad eventually leaves her mom. Her mom blames the young girl, and I remember a fight scene between them where there are ornaments or snow globes or some trinket from the dad to the mom, they end up smashed or broken, and the mom blames the young girl for the dad leaving but in reality it wasn’t the girls fault. The young girl begins to swim with her school team.  Cut to her adult life, she is a stunningly, drop-dead gorgeous, beautiful woman (and knows it), and I don’t believe she has a relationship with her mom. All I can remember is she meets a man who lives on a boat with his dog and she falls in love with him, but he has a girlfriend when they meet (or fiance/wife i can’t remember). I think she manipulates them into breaking up. I also remember one scene where she randomly meets someone she went to school with who bullied her and the woman has a young kid, I think they meet in a cafe? And this woman was a model when she was younger and they were in school together, but is now a mom and I think described as ugly or gross? I can’t remember the climax of the book…

The book had a house with a circular tower room. The house was out in the woods away from people. The main character (a girl) would go there as a refuge…that’s all I remember. I think it was a mystery.