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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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!) |
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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. |
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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! |
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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.
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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. |
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