Category: Name That Book Request

Request #96

Looking for a book from the 1970s. It had life, beauty, fashion, diet etc. advice for teenage girls. Paperback cover has a young woman’s face, I think the whole cover was muted yellows and browns. A few things I remember reading-
If have more than 1/2 inch of fat you’re very unhealthy and should lose weight asap.
Don’t eat butter or cake because it causes acne.
How to dress, and it involved a lot of long skirts and scarves.
There were various charts..saying how much you weigh, what exercises to do, wardrobe staples, and a few simple drawings. Other than that it was all text.
By today’s standards it’s pretty bad/funny advice if I remember correctly.

Suggestion from Lost Classics Reader Amber: the Nancy Taylor Personal Development series

Request #94

 I have also been searching for a book I read back in grade 6, around 1984. I don’t recall the author, but I think the title had “secret” in it. The cover had the picture of a girl.

It’s about a high school girl (don’t remember her name, but let’s call her City Girl) who lives in the city. Her cousin lives in a small town, far enough away that City Girl stays for weeks when she does visit. The cousin had a boyfriend, but she believed another girl in school was trying to take him away. During Christmas break, City Girl and Cousin write a letter signed “secret admirer” to lure this boyfriend stealer away. They believe this girl went to meet this admirer, but there was a bad winter storm and she dies in a car crash.

The summer after Christmas, City Girl visits her cousin again because Cousin believes the dead girl is haunting her. Both City Girl and Cousin are threatened and almost killed, all along believing it’s the dead girl’s ghost. Turns out it was the gardener who loved this dead girl; he knew of this letter and was taking his revenge. Solved by a Lost Classics Reader: The Secret by Carol Beach York, part of the Windswept Romace series. 

Request #93

Hi! I am looking for a book a read a lot as a teen that has not travelled with me in my many moves. It was published in the 80s, I believe. It’s about a girl who is a freshman in high school and wants to be a cheerleader. She has red hair, and older sister, and her family writes on their kitchen table. She likes a boy from another school. There’s a passage I remember when they were sitting on a couch and trying to figure out what it was, the conclusion was naugahyde, and she might have had a friend named Marcy. The cover is a girl jumping in a cheer uniform.
Thanks in advance! I know it wasn’t a fever dream….looking forward to seeing if anyone else read it, or knows what it is!  The Rah Rah Girl By Caroline Cooney identified by Lost Classics reader trinaclem

Request #91

a collection of short stories of the mystery/suspense genre. In one story a teenage boy gets involved with a crime he’s trying to solve and in the end I’m almost sure he gets shot in the shoulder but lives. I can clearly remember his description of the girl that helps him solve the mystery. I think her name is Sybil. “Nose a little too small, mouth a little too large, lots of freckles. Lots of guys fall for that type.”

Request #90

 Woke up thinking about a book I read in the late 1970s I think where the protagonist was a ? Teenager boy who had been a bully and was trying to turn it around. I remember him trying to lose weight. He had parents who were trying to be supportive o think. That’s all I  got:)  The Bully of Barkham Street by Mary Stoltz, solved by Lost Classics Readers Sandra and Tracy. 

Request #89

There is a book that I read in Middle School(97-2000) that has been driving me nut to find. I believe it was published in the 70s but can’t be sure. It was mystery/ghost story. I can remember the plot but not the title or author.

The plot centers around a young girl who lives with her father in this big house with bogs nearby. She finds this really old locket which had belong to a young girl who died many years before and whose spirit uses that locket to lure other young girls into the bogs. What happened to the spirits in her life was that she fell in love with a boy who gave her the locket but her father forbade her from being with the boy and she eventually tried to run away or something but got caught in a bog and died. And so her spirit lingers. I believe the protagonist almost dies in a bog but her father saves her. Of course it has my memory of the plot. Perhaps you can help me locate this book. Suggestion: Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downinh Hahn

Request #88

I am looking for the title of a book, I would have read it probably in the mid-to-late 70s, about a girl who was a budding tennis star and she was on the tennis competition circuit, but also coming of age and starting to have regrets or wishes she could be a normal kid. I distinctly remember a part in the book of the girl prepping for a tournament and having steak and eggs for breakfast, because it was high protein to fuel her.  She wore her hair in long pigtails (as I did during that time).  I don’t remember much more. The girl may have been blonde, but I don’t remember that either. Suggestion: When No One Was Looking by Rosemary Wells

Request #87

I read the first few chapters of this sci-fi book in 1985, when I was 11 or so. I feel like it’s a slightly older book, maybe from the 70s. Maybe older, but I don’t think so. A scientist is building a doorway to another reality in his laboratory. This is in his house and his neighbor is a nurse, a little pushy, crushing on him and always coming over. Well, he gets the doorway working one day when she comes over with a casserole (I remember this specifically) and when they go through the door into this new reality, they eat the casserole on the banks of like, a creek or something, with their hands because they have no utensils. That’s as far as I got before I lost the stupid book and it’s been driving me crazy for years! What was it called!