Category Archives: Teen

352C: High School French Textbook From 60s

I’m looking for a high school teaching French text probably published during the first half of the 60’s. I remember it as having a plain teal cover and being entirely black and white. It contained paragraphs to translate that were folk stories. The sunken city of Ys- you can still hear the bells beneath the waves- the storks of Alsace. I lost it in a flood.

351G: Seizure Takes Girl Back in Time to Relive Ancestor’s Life

I’m trying to find a book that I read in the late 70’s. It was a paperback book, probably a teen novel about a girl whose name was Katherine (I think). She goes into an antique store or an attic and sees a picture of herself which turns out to be a picture of her great great great Grandmother. She has a dream and goes back in time and lives her grandmother’s life in great detail, for years. It seems to be a life in the Middle Ages.
She suddenly wakes up from her dream and is told that she has only been asleep for about 15 minutes and that in fact, she had a seizure. During this very short seizure, she lives her ancestor's life.

I believe the cover of the book had a portrait of the girl from the Middle Ages in it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I loved this book and would be so happy to find it.

347C: Book series about a magic school for teens

The first book has a scene where the student almost dies due to a werewolf-like creature and is saved and recruited to a magic school. The school has a sanctuary for animals. The cooks at the school are Bob the troll and a hag who tries to eat the students on occasion. The main character learns how to the fight the werewolf-like creatures. The students play soccer on a magic field that changes (hills are added to the field during play). In one scene, the main character is in an art gallery and is almost killed, and the school is under attack in the last book of the series

347A: Peace/Anti-Nuclear Chunky White book with Colourful Stick People


Just thought of this book today because it seems somewhat prophetic given the more recent school strikes for climate, referencing it not being fair that it’s the children having to be the ones to make the grown-ups wake up! I think the subject was about nuclear bombs more than environment, nuclear threat being the threat of the day in the UK in 1980s/early 90s.

The book is very striking, minimalist and arty, the cover and pages being mainly white, with few words, and many small colourful stick people (each max 1” high).
I’m not sure which age range it was aimed at, could be teens or young adults or just any adults.
It is written naively as if by children for adults.
The format is large and chunky, perhaps about 8 - 9” wide by 10 - 12” tall and 1 - 2” thick. The cover as mentioned is white with some colourful stick people.
I think I bought in UK (tho could possibly have been in the USA) in the early 1990s (so published no later than 1992).
I cannot remember the title but I think it MIGHT have ‘Peace' in it… but it might not!!

It would be great to find it again.
Thanks for your help.

346Y: Medieval Girl Watches Battle Out of Castle Window

The book was older and faded back in the early 90s, the art reminded me of the style of Stephen Kings Dark tower. It was found at a school library in the older kids/adult section and was defending fiction. The cover had a young girl with a solemn look in a red medieval dress sitting at a castle window. I remember something about a war or battle and it may have even been what she was watching out the window. I also remember a tilted drafting type table or needlework stand beside the girl. I was 9 when I started to read it and was told it was “too old” for me so it was taken before I could read more than the first couple of chapters. 

346P: Teen Mystery Centered Around a Library (Solved!)

It’s set in a small town where the main girl is a young teen/pre-teen and she lives with her grandparents and her uncle who is younger than her and is basically her little brother. They go to the library in town (the mystery of the book is centered around the library) and the library has a large mural of Andrew Carnegie burning in hell because the town hated him and refused one of his Libraries and built their own with a big “f you” to him in it.

345Z: Teen paperback series about pioneer girl

I read this probably 30+ years ago. It was a short series—3 or 4 books–normal sized paperbacks, not very thick, in the teen section of the library. I believe they were shelved in the last part of the alphabet, so the author’s last name will begin with something further along than M. I have a feeling that the name Sherwood was part of the author’s name, but I think it was the first name, not the last one, and I could be totally imagining that detail.

The one I remember best follows a early teen or tween girl who has been growing up as a tomboy in the West. Her mother is distressed at the rough behavior the girl has picked up from playing with her brothers and not being exposed to the more refined aspects of life. The girl is sent back east to spend an extended amount of time with relatives who are going to teach her to be “a lady”. I’m pretty sure she gets put into corsets, and there is a scene in which what sounds like some sort of torture device is used to “cure” her pigeon-toed gait. Her schooling appears to be focused on things like posture, and dancing and etiquette, and have almost no academic content. The girl is miserable and although I don’t remember how/why, she returns to her family in the west after a few months, instead of a few years as had been originally planned and there is a scene where as part of a dare from her brothers she walks the ridgepole of one of their buildings, and afterwards declares that all that fuss about posture and grace, and the “ladylike” way to walk was good for something since she won the dare.

I don’t remember if the other books in the series are about the same characters, or if they are about different people but set in the same time period/location.

344I: Teen Romance From the 50’s or 60’s

Looking for a book I read as a young teen.  Early 1970’s, I expect it was written in the later 1950’s or 60’s.

The book was a young adult high school romance. I remember nothing except the girl was not one of the popular girls (she may have been new in school) and her name in the book is Beth (could have been Elizabeth but she was called Beth).  The boy in the story line was the popular boy in school.

Outside of Little Women, the name Beth was not one found often in books and since it is my name the basic story stuck with me.

343V: Ellen, Haggis, Scottish Traditions in America


A teen girl whose family has died is sent to live with relatives (maiden aunts?) in a part of the United States that still follows more Scottish customs than American customs, including holidays, and she experiences major culture shock.  I believe the title character is named Ellen.  The cover shows her at the door wearing a shift mini-dress, so the novel probably was written in the late 1960s or early 1970s.  This novel is the first time I encountered the word “haggis.”