Category: Name That Book Request

 hi i’m looking for a book that i read in maybe 2020 that i got from my city library but the book was about this teenage girl who was a main character liked her neighbor/boy best friend i think and i remember in the beginning of the book the boy came in her room drunk and said he liked her or something but she just shook it off because he was drunk. and i remember him going over to her house towards the end of the book because her parents were having like a small get together or something. i have been looking for this foreverrr and i cannot find it. please help me

I’m looking for a YA mystery romance novel that I read in junior high in Canada, probably published in the late 1970s or early 1980s, possibly through Scholastic. I don’t remember the cover. The details in my mind are so vague: It was a female protagonist, 17 or 18, possibly first-person; I don’t recall her name. She was temporarily living in a house near a marsh/swamp/quicksand (no idea what country). She might have been there to take care of a senior man and the romance involves a great-nephew or grandson. It had a feminist bent, since she wanted to be referred to as “Ms” not “Miss”—but I believe she ended up engaged to the great-nephew or grandson at the end. Someone in the household had vanished years ago. A clue to the murderer’s identity had to do with a cape (or a rain poncho?); I think it was discovered in a knitting basket. The book cited lines from a Lewis Carroll poem: “‘You are old, Father William,’ the young man said…”

 I have a patron searching for a YA novel, probably from the 80s or 90s concerning a 1950s cool “greaser” tough kid who dies in a car crash and is either reincarnated as a nerdy 80s kid or becomes a guardian angel for a nerdy 80s kid.  The patron says the book is similar to the 80s movie “The Heavenly Kid,” but is not that movie.  I don’t know of any novelization of that movie, but can find nothing with this plot for them.  Any thoughts? Suggestion: the novelization of the TV series “Teen Angel”, starring a pre-90210 Jason Priestly. 

The one I can’t seem to find is a book written in the 70s or early 80s, and it was about two sisters, one of whom was hidden from the other because she had a disability and was a slow learner. I think the main character might have been named Cathy, but I can’t find anything when I search YA with her name. I don’t know the title or the author.  I think the mother was a stepmother. I was discussing old book favorites with a friend and we both recall reading some book like this from our school library (in the 70s/80s), but can’t recall the rest. Suggestion: Cathy At the Crossroads by Nancy W. Faber

 I’ve been looking for this book for years. It’s a young adult book, I read it in the seventies when I was about 10. It’s about two friends at school, one is kind of a nerd, supersmart, and the other is his best friend. One of the two starts having dreams about events, and either the dreams come true, or will come true, and sometimes they’re about tragic things. They start a business and I believe it was called Dreamers Inc. or Dreams Inc (which I thought was the title of the book, but nothing exists under those names), and they use their dreams (one of them dreams and the other interprets the dreams, I think) to help others and make some money. At one point, they fight, and the nerd, who has completely changed now and believes he is the one with all the power, has a dream, and his friend interprets the dream or something along those lines, and he tells him not to go somewhere, and I think he goes to an abandoned building and he falls or is pushed. They find his body the next morning. 

I read this book as a young adult in the 1980’s set in the future. Sci-Fi? One of the characters is a young girl who is advised by the decapitated heads of dead leaders kept alive in glass containers. I remember the cover had a picture of the young girl with short dark hair. It’s not much but I’ve been trying to locate the title for quite a while. Thanks for any help!

 I am searching for the title of a book I read as a child but I don’t have much to go on. I probably checked it out from the school or local library, in the mid-late 80s. There was a juvenile (older child or young teen) main character who I think had a tough home life and wanted to run away from home. They put together a stick and bandana rig or had a knapsack (I’m not sure which), gathered some things from home, and then ran away. Items they took with them included a loaf of bread and some change (dimes stick out in my mind for some reason, and they were calculating how long they could make their money last). I also remember something about canned goods, and for some reason there were a few cans without labels, which were thought of as surprise meals. I don’t remember much else from the book. I might be mixing up books here, but the character may have been on the cross-country team. Suggestions: The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner  or  Homecoming by Cynthia Voight