Site last updated:
1 January 2009

What Is This Place?

These are books that I loved, lost, forgot, remembered, looked for, and found. The degree of obsoleteness varies from book to book, as does the method of re-discovery. But if you've ever lost a book, I'm telling you, you can find it again. Probably. Maybe even by asking me. But not by saying something like, "I read this great book many years ago, and I don't remember what it was called, but I remember that the cover was orange."

A Time of Darkness by Sherryl Jordan This is a book about a modern teenage boy in a purple shirt who gets stuck in a primitive valley. I did a search (well, several searches!) on some plot keywords, and found the book described on an Amazon page. It's out of print, so it's lucky for me I still had a copy on my shelf at home. (Good old packrat habits!) I re-read it, and it's just like I remember, except that I forgot the punch line, that seemingly insignificant actions can change the world. I remembered the nightmares about the wolf, the little orphan girl whom the boy befriends, and the girl that the boy becomes engaged to. I didn't remember the dialect of the people in the valley, but I like it. It creates a charming sort of voice.
The Twenty-one Balloons by William Pene du Bois This book was one that I'd heard on tape from the library as a kid, over and over and over again. I've always known the title - it just didn't occur to me that there was a book too, until I picked up a ragged copy of the paperback at a yard sale.
The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo D Roberts This book was one we read out loud in class in elementary school, I think. I always thought it was cool that the girl could make stuff move with her eyes, so I've always remembered certain details of the story and I've always remembered the title. I didn't know who wrote it. Recently I decided it might be worth reading again, so I looked it up online, found out who wrote it, and went to find a copy to read.
Interstellar Pig by William Sleator This was a fifth or sixth grade reading book, I think. I'd thought of it a couple of times, remembering details about the pink lichen and the eerie game, but I thought the title was Space Pig, and I didn't know who wrote it. I realized, however, that the Internet might help me find the REAL title. I ran a search on "children's books Space Pig" or something like that, and found it! Gotta love the Internet. (There's a new sequel out now called Parasite Pig, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's really lame. However, there's new cover art for Interstellar Pig which rocks!)
The Battle for Castle Cockatrice by Gerald Durrell This book drove me nuts for YEARS! It had appeared as an animated show or series of shows on a program called Long Ago and Far Away, a public television program hosted by James Earl Jones. I'd also read it, and it influenced some poems I wrote in sixth grade. I knew it had a talking parrot in it, and so when I was much younger and trying to find the book, I tried looking up things about parrots in the card catalog, and that didn't work. I also tried looking up things about the song the parrot sung, about moon-carrot pie or tart or whatever, but that didn't work either. The day I found Interstellar Pig online, I did a search for "children's fantasy talking parrot" or something like that, and found the book. I had read The Talking Parcel, now published as The Battle for Cockatrice Castle. I checked the book out at the library - the same public library where I'd read it before, and the same copy. Some things just never change. I bought a hardback of The Talking Parcel online. It has a great cover! At about the same time, I was even able to buy the cartoon film I'd seen originally. It's 40 minutes and cute as anything.
The Big Joke Game by Scott Corbett I remembered this book by the plot. There's this kid who likes to play games, obsessively, to the detriment of his homework and the annoyance of his teachers, parents, and friends. Then he gets hurt somehow and winds up in some in-between world where he has to play a game for real, with a devil for a companion. At the end, he can choose to stay forever or return to the real world. I guessed that it was by the author named Scott Corbett, because I remember reading his books, and it seemed like the kind of story he would write. I was right. But when I re-read the book, I discovered that the boy's annoying fixation was with jokes, not games. The game challenged him to make jokes, or not, as the case may be. He had always gotten in trouble for making jokes at the wrong time. He also liked games, but I'd forgotten all the pun, spoonerism, and limerick content which plays such a huge role in the plot. I have purchased a copy of this book for $19; a comparable non-library book might cost five or six times as much!	[X].
All the Money in the World by Bill Brittain I thought this one was also by Scott Corbett, and didn't know the title. It has a moral sort of like the book listed above. There's a kid who catches a leprechaun and wishes for all the money in the world. Then all sorts of problems occur because of this wish. The kid learns that it wasn't such a great wish, after all. When I looked through listings of books by Scott Corbett, though, there wasn't a book that fit that description. I was talking to my roommate about my hopeless hunt, and she said, "Hey, that sounds familiar. It was by the same guy as this other book..." But she didn't remember the title or the author of the other book! She described the other book to me, and I knew I had it at home, far away, and I didn't remember the title either! When I went home, I found the book, whose title is The Wish Giver. The author is Bill Brittain. Then I looked up books by Bill Brittain, and found the one called All the Money in the World. Bingo. Checked out the copy at the local library at home - probably the same one I read before. It is a really good book to read to learn about how money works to facilitate what is really a barter system. Teaches youngsters the meaning of the word "earn." I have an ex-library copy signed by the author!
Too Much Magic by Betsy and Samuel Sterman I had no idea how to find this one. I remembered that there was a magic silver cube that would grant wishes. It used electricity somehow. It also made the protagonist boy fly. He had wished for purple sneakers at one point, but had to wish them away so his mom wouldn't think he had stolen them. When they were wished away, they wound up on a statue in a park! There was also a scene where the boy runs away from a monster he thinks is chasing him. His gym teacher is also somehow involved. I remembered all that and forgot the title and author. Ah well. What I had to go on was the words "magic cube." Internet searches turned up stuff that was completely irrelevant. What was I to do? I went back to my library, hoping to just find it, maybe. And I did. I was looking through the Juvenile Fiction Section where all these books live. I don't know what made me pick this particular book up. Maybe from looking at the other books I'd read long ago I gained a sense of what the book might look like, if it were old enough to have been there when I was a kid. Maybe it was the font on the spine. When I pulled it off the shelf, I knew I'd found it. I did a little victory dance, hoping no one thought I'd gone mad. It is a great book. The end is even better than I remembered. You should read it. I spent a chunk of money on a really nice used hardback which I love. I also have a ratty library copy that I found for $1.00. You can never have too much Too Much Magic.
Black and Blue Magic by Zilpha Keatley Snyder There's this kid who somehow gets this bottle of magic lotion or potion or liquid or cream or something that makes wings grow on his shoulders. But the wings aren't permanent. He uses the stuff, goes flying in secret (out his window), comes back, and they go away. And eventually he uses the stuff up. I think he's a shrimp and gets picked on, and finds release when he goes flying. And he builds up muscles, so that when the lotion runs out, he doesn't mind, because his original problem is solved and he's more grown up. He deals with the issues of being caught, and possibly of the wings wearing off before he gets back home. This is one of my more recent re-discoveries. One day I found a blog which described this book. Too bad the webmaster didn't like the book, and couldn't remember the title or author. Later, I bumped into a website called www.loganberrybooks.com which has a "lost book" service. I searched for my magic lotion book in their archives, and it turned out other people had already lost and found it! Now I've re-read it and I own a copy.