Request #22

I read this in 1965 and was under the impression it was pretty contemporary.   The story concerns  a young teenage girl whose family spends summers  somewhere on the Atlantic coast. This particular summer they have an older teenage girl board with them and she’s a bit rough around the edges but is kind and wants to improve he self and her circumstances.   She has a buttery soft yellow leather jacket that the younger teen admires.  The older teen gets into some sort of scrape and decides to move on as she believes it to be in everyone’s best interest.  She quietly leaves behind the yellow jacket as a gift to her young friend. I remember the cover depicted ocean, pier, maybe an old house, and a bit of stormy weather. Suggestion: The Sea Gulls Woke Me by Mary Stoltz

Request #21

 My memories of it are pretty vague. The paperback cover featured a red-haired girl in a green dress. I believe it was about a teenager who moved to somewhere very green and mysterious, perhaps with castles…maybe Ireland? And there were always white swans on the lawn. I believe the girl’s name was Phillippa. I got it in a box of my older cousin’s stuff…in the late 1980s, so I believe it was published some time in the mid-eighties. Any help would be appreciated!  Solved by Lost Classics reader Kim Dreams and Memories by Lavinia Harris

Request #20

 I’m piecemeal tracking down the YA romance books I loved reading and rereading in the ’80s and there’s one whose title I can’t remember–it’s really stumping me! It’s about a girl whose family moves from Arizona to Minnesota, and she has a really hard time adapting to the cold and snow. She’s always complaining about how things are so much more perfect back in sunny, warm AZ, which, needless to say, doesn’t go over very well with her new classmates, who basically tell her to GTF away from them if she hates them and their state so much. I think she had a boyfriend back in AZ who she was pining for as well. Ring any bells for anyone? Suggestion: The Year My PArents Ruined My Life by Martha Freeman New Girl by Janet Adele Bloss solved by Lost Classics reader Kristina

Request #19

 I’ve got another anthology that I’ve been trying  to track down- it was from the very late 1980s or very early 1990s and was short stories and excerpts from novels, and I want to say that it had a title like “A Child’s Treasury of Humor”. The two pieces I specifically remember are Shirley Jackson’s short story “Charles” and the chapter from Lake Wobegon Days about the Boy Scouts. It was a thick (600+ pages) oversize hardcover. Anybody remember this one? SOLVED! The Random House Book of Humor for Children solved by Lost Classics Reader daisyporter

Request #17

“I am pretty sure it was a Whitman hardcover about two sisters traveling to somewhere. The older sister had just started driving and maybe they are driving an old Volkswagon? They end up staying in an old house and there was a painting on the one wall they find out later had holes where the eyes were for spying. The cover was purple-ish with possibly the painting on the front. I can’t remember what the mystery was about. There may have been a grandfather in the story too or some type of older relative.” Update: possibly Spirit Town by Suzanne Roberts, maybe combined with plot elements from another book. 

Request #16

 “I’m pretty sure this one’s from the early 2000s. It’s historical fiction set after the Vietnam war. A boy in middle school learns to play chess from a teacher who was a veteran of the war. The boy had a baby sister called Cassie who died, possibly in a car accident? He remembers she had hair like peach fuzz. I can’t remember if the teacher ends up dating his mother or something, maybe that happened? It was one of those quiet, slice-of-life-y novels that I ate up well after I was supposed to be too old for midgrade novels, and I’d like to reread it.”  A Long Way Home by Nancy Price Graff, at last found by the original requestor, Miss Amy! 

Request #15

 “I read this paperback book in the 1970-71 school year, when I was eleven. A mother was escaping the Nazis with her three children; I don’t remember where the father was. The mother had a carriage for the baby, and I think had to store other supplies such as food and clothes in the carriage too. At one point they were on a train packed with others attempting to escape. In order to fit more people onto the train, a man tried to throw the carriage off, but the baby was still in it, and the mother had to fight to save the baby. (This scene really scared me, which is why I remember it.) At the end the family somehow made it safely to Switzerland, where they were taken in by some relatives. The book was my introduction to the horror of the Holocaust. I think it was written in the first-person by the mother, but whether it was true or fictional, I don’t know.”  Ordeal by Fire by Anne Wahle and Roul Tunley

Request #14

“I don’t remember the title or author but I think it was young adult. It was about a young couple who got married young. The book starts out with both of them telling her parents about getting married. The girl mentioned something about her sweater. I think the couple were hippies and they were living out in the woods. I don’t think she got pregnant until after the marriage. I remember she went to a class at the hospital and made a friend there. The girl had a baby boy they named feather. It is not the first part last. It was published either in the 1970s or 1980s. I think the couple in the book had problems getting along after she had the baby. If anyone can give me any help, I’d greatly appreciate it I think the baby was lost at one point or around a lot of people. I’m positive the baby was named feather.”

Request #13

“It was a YA or an adult book, a memoir, so I tried to be very secretive when I read this one at age 10 or so. (That would’ve been the late 90s, but the book was probably older.) It was in first person, I think, and it was the story of this girl growing up in the late 60s or 70s, and it was mostly about sex. She eventually gets pregnant, goes to college, gives birth, gives the baby up for adoption, and Begins To Move On.

Things I remember vividly: Boys cornering her at a park or in the woods, getting her blouse open, and writing “SLUT” on her breasts in permanent marker.  The main character marking out when she could and couldn’t have sex in a calendar.  One of her friends writing something like “nothing lezzie but I love you” in her yearbook.  Her getting pregnant, wanting no one to know, and taping her stomach down with duct tape (?).  She gives birth, gets to see the baby girl once (even though she’s not supposed to), and mentions how weird and empty her stomach feels just after it. And then, she joins her college campus newspaper, and one of the stories they’re running when she first goes in to ask about joining is called something like “Incest: One Daughter Speaks.” The cover was maybe a buff colour, and I can sort of picture a silhouette of a woman on it, but I don’t know if I’ve got it correct.” Confirmed: Grown-Up Fast By Betsy Israel