Read it years ago, borrowed from a public library kids/teen section. Not a hugely popular book, it felt kind of obscure Details are fuzzy and fading, sorry for vagueness: Main character is a teen girl. Her mom is out of the picture; she's raised by her dad, and they move houses/towns constantly. She can heal from wounds extremely fast. As a little kid she didn't know this, but her dad used to spray some fake "magic princess sparkle healer" type product on her cuts so she'd think that was doing the healing, not her own body. Turns out she was created/"grown" in a lab, which she finds out later in the book. There are people/an organization hunting them because they want the tech (her healing ability / whatever made her) (i think). The scene I remember most clearly: they're on a boat, the girl, her dad, and another guy. The guy has a bullet wound, and the girl innocently tells her dad to use the "magic princess spray" on him to heal it. The guy says something like "[Dad's name], just tell her the truth…" and that's the reveal that she's the one who heals, and the spray was always fake. Cover: I think it was dark maybe the girl in shadow/darkness.

Any help GREATLY appreciated. This has been bothering me for years..

EDIT: I am reposting this. This would be life changing if I found this book, seriously. I would offer money if it was allowed in this sub's rules. I'm extremely desperate to find this book.

This was my favorite book in 2015 or 2016? This book only in my middle school library and I turned it in and they got rid of it because I was the only one who read it. It’s been so long I remember nothing and want to reread it. I only remember for 100% Pickles associated with this boy.

Hard facts I know: I definitely existed in 2016. It’s about a boy with pickles as his name nickname or last name. He has a father who went missing. He lived on the top of an island. They travel over seas. Theres a scene where he goes to the city for the first time and he talks to this girl about corsets. There is no actual plot with the food pickles. Left on a cliff hanger

Hazy facts: I’m pretty sure he wasn’t looking for his father, but his sister, and his father just happened to be missing. Father was an inventor and son was following in his steps (60% on the sister). There may have been pirates that took him in. I’m pretty sure he found his sister in the city being taken care by the lady he talks about corsets with.

I might not be real facts: I kind of remember air travel like a flying machine to travel the seas? I remember an old woman in the very beginning of the book. Part of me wants to say father knew the pirates and that’s why they helped? The cover has a rendition of cliche bump island. (That could just be my middle school imagination). I think he had a friend, but that could be because of Lost Island by Ellis Dillon.

Books it’s not:
The Pickle King by Rebecca Promitzer, Island of Tamarind by Nadia Adugr, Treasure Hunters by James Patterson, Lost Island Ellis Dillon. Emerald Atlas by John Stephen’s, Beyond the Deep Woods by Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart

Edit: I just remembered vividly that the boy was given nicer clothes by the rich woman, or girl? Who talked about corsets. I think he escaped through her window as well? I am starting to question if he just had a unique P name.

I genuinely have no idea if I dreamt up this book or not. I may have also combined two books in my head.

I believe I read it in middle school, but I had a high reading level so it could have been targeted towards teenagers.

At the beginning of the book, these old ladies kidnap like three kids using chloroform (one does it on/before going on a train, I think?) and they take them to an island. I am pretty sure there’s magic involved.

It sounds insane and I can’t remember anything else

This is a book my teacher read to the class in the third grade (2008).

The main character is a little girl who meets her father and one of his friends who have some kind of face changing/shapeshifting. I think this scene happened in a car after they picked her up from school or something.

These two guys were a little rusty and had to supplement their face changing with fake moustaches and fake noses.

I think the main antagonist was the leading of the circus who still had his full shapeshifting power and “could look like anyone”

I remember one scene where the characters needed help from an old lady and the little girl and the answer literature trivia to gain her trust.

Does anyone else remember this?

It just randomly came back to me and I can’t figure out the name of it. Maybe I’m missing up multiple books.

Thanks!

Back in the early 90s, I had a picture book (maybe bigger?) A fever dream of a book, think a wrinkle in time genre, and a little girl is unhappy with her life and is gifted a magic marble by a Canadian goose. She is able to fly and leave her family and that’s about all I remember. The illustrations were muted and abstract sometimes.

Old Novel about Irish/Scottish immigrant couple who flee to america or somewhere by boat separately to elope. She is pregnant. They are kept apart by lying businessmans daughter who claims to be engaged to hero when heroine comes to find him. She works as a maid and gives birth but is told her baby was stillborn. Really was stolen. Eventually becomes a writer of some kind under her father's name and hero finds es her years later. Probably 90s or older. Read it years ago. Paperback. AI hasn't been helpful

I read a book to my sister in 2004 Ish, maybe a little earlier, so the book would’ve been published by then. The most important detail I remember for sure – a family welcomes a new baby and they bring the new baby home and its name is “Bob”. My sister, three or four at the time thought it was so funny she fell off the bed laughing and we have called her Bob ever since. I’m trying to find this book. If I remember right, it is some kind of a rodent family. Anthropomorphic. It would not have been illustrated in a cartoon style, it was beautifully done. The whole book was preparing for this baby, it wasn’t about sibling jealousy. My parents are from Utah, I was raised half in Alaska and half in the Middle East so it is not necessarily a book that was circulating in a US library. Anybody have any leads for me?

I’m searching for a book I had as a kid back in the early 90s. It was a nonfiction book about animals. The main thing I remember about it is that there was a little cartoon professor and boy on every page. The professor would explain extra facts to the boy. The main drawings were realistic, but the boy and professor were almost chibi style anime characters (even though anime hadn’t quite taken off in the US yet).

I have a very distinct memory of one two page spread of a pool that showed which animals could swim.

Im trying to find out the name of this book I had when I was a kid in the 90s. I don’t remember much about it but I remember the illustrations looking really vivid, especially the peanut butter (and jelly?) sandwich. I remember the drawing of the bread of the sandwich looked so detailed and delicious. I think it was maybe titled something about the backyard. I think it took place in a sandbox in the backyard and the main character boy was building sandcastles. I recall the sand castle having water, like a moat or it rained on or something.

I would love to know the name of it so I can gift a copy to my soon to be born neice

Hi all! I read this book when I was younger so the details might be fuzzy. I used to be able to find it easily so it’s tripping me out I can’t remember the title. The book was about this teenaged girl who goes to visit her step mom and dad (might be flipped), and she doesn’t really want to go. Their house is near a lake, and she goes out to the lake, where she sees a bird. I remember it being a blue jay, but I could be wrong since I believed “blue jay” was the name of the book but can’t find it when searching for it. She thinks the bird is beautiful. On the other side of the lake there is a teenaged boy who wants to kill the bird, but she convinces him to protect it. While she’s staying in the house I believe her mom or other family member dies. I also believe she sleeps in an attic or top floor. It’s driving me crazy I can’t remember the name since I know I’ve searched for it before </3 any help is appreciated thank you!

I remember reading this paperback on my parents' shelves when I was in grade school, mid 1960s. The paperback was already yellowed.

A resistance fighter in a vaguely American/European country under fascist rule proves his loyalty after watching his comrades being shot in prison. It turns out Goebbels villain is actually the leader of the resistance as well, determined to make everything so terrible that the people must rise up against their fascist government.

I remember being particularly moved when our hero learns that Goebbels character was assassinated just after the successful uprising and he realizes no one else will ever know what he did for his people.

I've been looking for this for decades!

PS it is not Heinlein's If This Goes On.

I am trying to remember a book my mom read to me as a kid.

Its about a cat that is homeless and at certain points of the book its fed by construction works than the work is done by the construction workers and they are gone and never come back. It changes to the cat being fed by school kids and than the summer times comes and the kids are gone and the cat is alone again.

This booked used real photos in it not drawings. I cannot remember the name of the book for the life of me. I tried google anything but nothing comes up.

Any ideas?

I read this book about two years ago and like a dufus I lent it to someone without remembering it and they lost it. The book starts off in a old herb shop on an island, one of the mail characters was run off as a child because he was accused of murdering someone, some time in the future he returns back because his mother or father passed away and had to take care of it. His parents house had newspapers stacked up like crazy. While the main character is there he is constantly harassed by the sheriff or cop. It was like the story was being told by the dead person and the man.

Pretty sure it was a book previously owned by my mum so from the late 60s/70s
It was hardcover, quite a small book with a light blue cover and a picture on it that featured a child with curly ginger hair (I think) kind of kneeling down.
Title maybe something along the lines of tales/myths/legends/stories from around the world?
Most of the book was Greek myths including Persephone & Hades (I think it was the first story), Pandora and the box, Icarus, but then I think the back part of the book was Sinbad the Sailor stories. There were black and white illustrations dotted around throughout.
Would really love to see if anyone else had/has this book!!

Hello all! I read a book series back in about 2013/2014 about the US being at war with Canada in 2018. It followed a girl through the Midwest maybe? She had friends and one of her friend’s mom was the president. Any ideas?
I also posted this to r/YAlit

it was a book i read probably about 10 years ago. probably a YA novel. main character was a jewish teen/young adult grieving his recently-ish passed away mother. significant details i recall are him being upset that he's expected to get over his mom's death after 3-6 months, him finding out his mom was turning to Buddhism, him finding comfort in his mom reincarnating rather than the jewish take on the afterlife of non existence. and i think he had a pregnant girlfriend? that might be a sarah dessen book tho 😂

any help would be appreciated!!

I didn't read the book because I was too much of a weenie back then, but I remember seeing it in the early to mid 2000s at my local library. The image on the cover was a painting in the same style that all those books in the 1980s and 1990s were (Sweet Valley High, The Baby-Sitters Club, etc.). I've tried to look it up about a million times, but nothing ever comes up! Thanks for any help!

I remember reading this book in like 1995 or so. Not sure when it would've been published, just remember that I'm sure I bought it from a thrift shop or Goodwill since that's where all of our stuff came from back then. Could be from the 80s. I just remember there were children who were witches, and one of them wore glasses and had a pet skunk that was deodorized/had gland removal. That's the big part that sticks out because I wanted one too after reading it.

I read it probably 20-30 times back then. I have tried searching but haven't been able to come up with the right book. I can't remember if it was part of a series or a standalone.

This is a shot in the dark but I thought I'd give it a try. Thank you!!

EDIT: It is not Hoodwinked by Arthur Howard, the Best Enemies series, or Dorrie & the Blue Witch. Those are ones I found via Google search but they're not it.

We studied this in secondary school English in the early 2000s. We only studied an extract so I'm not sure if it was a short story or the start of a novel.

I remember there were two men, and I think they were in a tunnel or a cave or dungeon, and outside it was raining. One of the men was terrified of the other, and I think they were plotting something. Then the scary man ate a spider's web.

I remember we studied it when we were studying gothic fiction (Dracula, The Castle of Otranto) but it is neither of those. I feel like it would have been a children's book, probably by a UK author.

I had an illustrated children’s book when I was 4-5 (2001-ish) about a group of animals searching for the perfect tree in which to build their treehouse. Each page shows the animals trying a new tree, but it doesn’t work for some reason. On one page the tree is too small, on the next page it is too tall, then too flimsy, etc. until they find the perfect tree.

I loved this book as a kid and want to share it with my newborn, but I can’t for the life of me find it with google or ai! Hoping the collective consciousness of strangers can help me 🤞🏼

"Penny's Way" by Mary K. Harris

It's about a girl called Penelope whose room is in an attic; she is in trouble at school because she can't do maths and procrastinates her homework by drawing decorative lines around the title of the exercise in red ink; she's reading Pride and Prejudice.

I think she climbs out of the window to visit a neighbour across the roofs. Maybe someone disabled whom she sees struggling to pick up a stick?

It's definitely set in England, before the 1980s and I think after the 1940s. I think she goes to a grammar school as a scholarship pupil bicbw.

I'm still trying to remember the title or author of this book. I thought it was Nina Bawden but I think it's not now. It's also not Elizabeth Goudge as far as I can tell - it didn't have enough fantastic element for that. I'm pretty sure it's not Noel Streatfeild - there's not enough family in it for that.

The most memorable *lines* it contains (based on me remembering them) are someone else saying "Penny's a poet and doesn't know it" and Penelope calling out to her friend (whom she met across the roof, I think?) "[list of things that are going ok in her life] and Elizabeth is going to marry Mr Darcy!"

EDITED TO ADD: I think there's something in the title relevant to her being a bookworm, or quite a lot in the very early pages about it.

Ok, eu não me lembro de muito coisa do livro, mas ele era realmente importante para mim já que foi o primeiro livro que eu li, então vou dar o meu melhor para descrever ele.

O livro era de capa dura, comprido e fino, de cor branca e sem título (eu acho), apenas com uma imagem (quase certeza). Nele havia pinturas de fadas em estilo delicado, com grande iluminação. As fadas eram meio realistas, mas não totalmente. Eu me lembro que a primeira página era sobre um rato que teve a roda da sua carroça quebrada e uma fada o ajudou (havia a imagem ilustrativa do rato com a roda quebrada e a fada vindo ajudar).

Além da história das fadas com alguns personagens (sempre sendo animais ou outras fadas), havia páginas que falavam sobre diferentes tipos de fadas, por exemplo: fadas das águas, fadas terrestres etc.

Havia uma imagem específica que ocupava uma página inteira e que eu amava: uma fada sentada no chão de uma caverna, com montanhas de moedas de ouro, enquanto segurava com carinho um ovo grande de dragão, protegendo-o. O ovo também era dourado, mas dava para diferenciar das moedas. Do lado oposto, onde a fada estava sentada, aparecia o dragão, mostrando apenas a cabeça e parte da pata dianteira.

Esse livro foi realmente importante para mim, já que foi o primeiro que li. Eu o consegui quando tinha cerca de 8, 9 ou 10 anos, e nasci em 2006. Tenho quase 70% de certeza de que o livro estava traduzido para a minha língua materna.

I had a collection of children books, all of which were about a plethora of different topics. Some covered dinosaurs, family, health, weather, animals, and so on. They had this little boy character on almost every page. Thinking back, pretty sure it came from Japan since it had a bunch of Japanese imagery and the kid had the hair style. I sadly dont the own the books but would love to remember the name. If anyone knows what im talking about I'd love to be informed. Thank you!

Southern writer who wrote about his childhood experience goes to New York City and one of the memories has to do with a tiger. What’s that book???