Category: Name That Book Request

The main character was a young girl with an older brother named Jack- Jack becomes sick and is soon diagnosed with cancer or some other life threatening illness (my memory is foggy). At the hospital where Jack is being kept, the main character meets another young cancer patient named Lara, who gets in trouble from her mother constantly for smoking, despite her illness. The main character has a love for horses, I believe. I don’t remember exactly, but I think there might have been a chapter where her and her friend from school go horse back riding. The book ends with Lara dying, but that’s all I remember.

I hope your cohort can help! I read this book in the ‘70s. It’s an adventure book – can’t quite recall if it’s only girls or if there are boys, too – and they chant a prayer to the Egyptian cat god, Bast/Bastet… I’ve been trying to remember it for decades!

If you’re taking submissions mine was this pretty short prob under 170 pages about this girl who grew up in a nunnery or something like that under the care of nuns in Russia or eastern Europe.  She had a baby I think or some complex relationship with her mother and that was a big theme through the book. Mothers and daughters and there was someone named Anne or Anna but i can’t recall if it was the characters name of part of the author’s name.  Sorry that’s hella vague, but if you know it, please let me know?! I’d love to re-read that book.

The plot goes like this: transfer students from Germany go to a western school, probably England or America I can’t quite remember. One of the (male)students of the school falls in love with a German boy, I don’t remember much of the rest of the plot. But I think it was called punishment, as it was set in post world war (1 or 2) era and there was a lot of rage as both boys, as well as the countries they belonged to tried to pick themselves up. The funny thing is I’ve been trying to find this book for years now and have almost given it up as a hallucination.

Looking for a young adult book set in the South. I read it at least 10-12 years ago, and think it must’ve been published in the 2000s. It’s set in the South, male narrator with a couple close friends who are also male (high school age). I believe the story opens with another friend of theirs being found dead and the narrator is very unreliable—I believe in the end he did it! For whatever reason I remember this book being called The Hanging Tree (but I cannot find a book with that title that is what I’m looking for) with a tree on the cover. At the very least, they discuss some legend of a hanging tree in the town. I believe at some point the narrator’s friend has a chicken with its head cut off!! The book has a very eerie feeling which is why I’m curious to revisit it as an adult.

Amazing site, my mom and I are tearing our hair out trying to find a book about an owl and a cat. Basically an unlikely friend story where the pair do not get along as the owl hoots all through the night, keeping the cat awake. And the cat bothers the owl in some way too. One night the owl saves the cat from danger (or these roles could be vice versa, I’m almost 40 and this was 53 years ago) and they find respect for each other.

I read it when I was in late middle or early high school, so around 5-7 years ago? I’m not 100% sure. I know I absolutely loved this book, and I would love to find and read it again but I have googled and can’t find it anywhere! But anyway, here’s what I can remember about the book: I think the cover might have been purple? Or had purple white and black? This is fuzzy.  It starts with the main character, a young girl being involved in some attack, maybe a terrorist attack at an airport. She has to lay down and fake being dead for a long time, and somehow ends up half on the “Other Side,” and can live basically another life in the ghostly side. She can also go back to herself and live her normal life like she never died. The book flips back and forth between her living life and her dead life, with the living pages printed on white paper, and the Other Side pages printed on grey paper. I wish I could remember more, but if anyone else remembers or knows this book I would love to hear any thing back!

The title is “One Good Friend.” It was about a boy who makes friends with a wolf. That’s all I remember about it other than it was a hardcover book with a greenish colored book jacket. I read it many times in elementary school during the mid to late 70s.

I was in elementary school and the library had a book I would read every year because I loved it so much It was a bout a witch who would make potions and I think maybe the potions had the names of colors. Like blue potion and green potion. I think she was also in a school too

70s. I read a book which I think was called “The Selkie”. There are several books I can google with this name but without the author’s name I don’t think any are right. The story was I think a first-person account of a teenage boy who turned out to be a Selkie and able to be a seal (which he only finds out part way through.) He lives in a (Scottish?) island community and has a younger brother Bran who is selected to be a sacrifice at the start of the story. I think the book is mostly him trying to stop the brother’s sacrifice but I don’t recall much more except I loved it. I think it was probably a Knight (reading club) book. 70s. This was a book from our library that I remember borrowing, reading many times and then taking it out for another period because I loved it so much. Sadly the memory has faded. It’s about a maybe 12 yr old boy from our world that gets pulled into a fantasy world. He ends up leading an army and battling with a special hero sword. Can’t recall if he was a king’s heir or if I added that. I recall the enemies being ‘orcs’ which is the first time I came across the word.  So I guess there was a Tolkien vibe to it. The boy (I vaguely think his name might be Peter but I may be mixing up with Narnia) hence became an orc-slayer. I wondered since finding lotr how they could use ‘orc’ but maybe the term is earlier than both (common source). Again from the 70s. Set in Britain I think. It’s the story of separated twins. The protagonist (Martin I think) has grown up with a twin (Sean or Steve?) and other siblings. Has never felt he fitted with the family and is not like his twin. Then one day he runs into a boy that looks identical to him. Turns out there was a mix up at the hospital and one of the twins went home with another family. I recall the emotion of the reveal. Also the emotion of the two boys with the wrong families always feeling separate from them. And the process of re-integrating to the right families.