Category Archives: 1950s

361R: Portal Fantasy Novel for Kids

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I’m trying to find a book that I read when I was in elementary school.  Unfortunately, I don’t recall many helpful details about the book—including its title and author—but I do remember loving the book and recommending it to a non-reading friend who also loved it.  I would very much like to find it so that I can buy it for my daughter.

The following is all I can remember about the book:

–It is a portal fantasy novel about a boy and possibly also a girl who somehow enter another world in order to help save a troubled kingdom or land (not very unique, I know).

–The plot involves a castle, mountains, wolves, and a race against time.  Magical/mystical talking(?) wolves play a role in the book, from what I remember.  I believe they were either the antagonists or the servants of the antagonist.

–From what I remember of the cover, it has a white border or partial border around it with a colorful collage of images from the book against a dark background.  I believe that a castle, mountains, and wolves were all present in this cover collage.

–I checked out the book from my elementary school library when I was in either third or fourth grade, but I believe the target audience of the book is late elementary readers (4th to 6th grade?).

–I read this book in the mid-1980s (between 1983 and 1985?), so it was published prior to that.

–I do not think that it was recent publication at that time, though it wasn’t a very old book either.  My guess is that it was published between 1950 and 1985—probably in the 1970s.

–It is a fairly long chapter book (perhaps 200 to 300 pgs?).

–The copy I checked out from my library had a small trim size, but was fairly thick with small type.

–It was written and published in English, probably either from the U.S. or England.

–It is a stand-alone novel, not part of a longer series.

–I do not believe it is a well-known or famous book.  I have not, for example, run across it on lists of best fantasy novels of the 20th century.

–The title is strange, or, at the very least, not particularly appealing to an elementary school reader because I remember telling my non-reading friend to read it despite the odd title.

–I think the title might have the words in it like “nowhere,” “other,” “land,” or “world.”

–The letter “O” also stands out in my memory as an important part of the title.

361G: YA historical novel heroine Margaret Plantagenet of York, later Margaret Pole

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Young Adult historical novel about the childhood/teenage years of Margaret Plantagenet of York, who later became Margaret Pole, and her brother Ned (Edward, Duke of Warwick), at the end of the War of the Roses and beginning of the Tudor period.  It starts in the court of her uncle, Edward IV, after her father (George, Duke of Clarence) has been executed for treason, and ends with her brother’s execution and her romance with Reginald Pole.  My memory is that the heroine is known as Meggy or Peggy. I probably read this in the early 60s, but it might have been written in the 30s, 40s or 50s. I thought the author might be Elizabeth Janet Gray, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Margaret C. Leighton, or Elizabeth George Speare but can’t find anything that seems to match this story among their titles.

358Q: Strawberry Soda is a Success at Girl’s Party (Solved!)

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The book I’m looking for was probably written in the 50’s or 60’s. It’s about a girl who is just encountering feelings for boys. The biggest thing I can remember is she decides to have a party and her parents get strawberry pop and she is afraid it’s going to be the wrong thing and instead, everyone loves it! No clue why I remember this, but there you go. She seems sort of sheltered, but in the end her party is a success and she gets a boyfriend, I think. I wish I could remember more! Hopefully someone else will remember strawberry soda/pop!

357S: NOT “Iron Duke”

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Around 1952–54, I read just about every John R. Tunis baseball book I could find. Then, having exhausted Mr. Tunis’s baseball output, I checked a football book out of the library. All these years, I have thought Tunis wrote it, and that its title was Iron Duke. Now I suspect both memories are wrong because …

A) I see no such book by Tunis.
B) Iron Duke appears to be about track.
So here is what I think I do remember correctly about the book I’d like to find:
Unlike all the baseball books I had read, the one I am seeking was written in first person. The narrator is some sort of recruiter of football talent for a college. He hears about a big, strong player in a backwoods part of the country, such as rural Pennsylvania, and goes to scout him. With questions about whether the player can fit into a collegiate environment, the narrator of the story takes a chance on the kid. (Maybe he doesn’t even have proper shoes.)
Do you see where this is going? The rube blossoms as a player and person and turns out to have a brilliant football mind, often figuring out, for example, based on the way the offensive players line up, what sort of play they are going to run.
I had settled on the football book out of desperation, and wound up loving it. But now I don’t know who wrote the book or if the title was in any way similar to Iron Duke.
Given that my clues are skimpy––and that what I had always thought I’d remembered clearly seems to be incorrect––you have your work cut out for you.

357Q: Sci-fi book including “Men of Harlech”

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Some 60 years ago, I was reading a science-fiction book in which an adult was with two children, ca. 12 years old, on a trip of some sort.  While they are out walking, he sang “Men of Harlech” to them; the words for a verse or two appear in the book:

“Men of Harlech in the hollow, do ye hear like rushing billow …”, &f.
I recalled nothing else of the book until a few days ago when I suddenly recalled that a planet named “Lepton” figured in the book somehow; I thought this additional detail might be enough to find the book.

The reason for such vagueness, beyond the 60-year time lapse, is that I never finished the book. I was perhaps 9 or 10 years old, but this wasn’t a children’s’ book; the librarian jerked the book from my hands, telling me to “stop pretending to read that book” and go pick a book from the children’s’ section instead.  I could read the newspaper before I started 1st grade, so I was by no means pretending, and I wasn’t interested in children’s’ books.

My mother had a somewhat heated talk with the librarian sometime later, and the librarian never bothered me again on subsequent visits.  But I was unable to locate the book again.

357P: Schizophrenic Lady M.D.

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Book written in 1950’s, 60’s I think. But remotely possible published as late as 70’s, 80’s.  Autobiography (?) by woman (maybe named “Diane”, not sure…?) who suffered schizophrenia (I think, or some sort of mental illness) and became an M.D. despite this.

Probably a U.S. book, but not sure.  English language, anyway.

356T: Book of Children’s Stories from 50’s or 60’s

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I am looking for an old children’s book of stories. I guess it would be from between the 1950s or 60s. It contained the story of the woman who became a woodpecker who baked pies as well as a story of a man who had to cut a hole in his roof to fit the top of his tall Christmas tree through.

Thank you for any help you might be able to give!!!!

356R: Picture book with a castle maze inside the front and back covers

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This book was a discarded library book my grandmother got from a teacher friend. I read it in the early 90s and I think the art looked like something from the 50s or 60s. Not many colors, lots of red, black, white, and grey.

Someone, a knight or a king, got trapped in a castle maze and was there a long time. So long that he grew lots of hair. There was something else in the castle maze too, I think it was the bad guy who trapped him.

I don’t remember many details of the story, just that I felt bad for the person being trapped in there for so long.

The one thing I do remember is the castle maze. It was printed from a birds eye view looking down. The maze took up two pages and showed various stages of a chase taking place through out it. This maze was printed on the inside cover and first page (before the title page) of the book, and in the center of the book, and on the last page and back cover.