# Describe a book you read and liked as a kid but can't remember its title **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 4, 2015, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570 "2015-11-04T00:04:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/21 "2015-11-04T15:17:26Z")
**gigi** , I feel like yours is a Lois Lenski book…I’m leaning towards _Prairie School_ but I can’t prove it. ---
**Author:** ![CGav8r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CGav8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CGav8r)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/22 "2015-11-04T16:03:51Z")
A book I read in elementary school in the late '70s was about a kid nicknamed “Mouse”, who like to do funny graffiti, IIRC. In a city park he tries to climb up some boulders/rocks because there is a small, naturally occuring slot in the side of the rock and he wants to paint “Insert Coin Here”. I think he had to deal with a bully as well. Also, whenever anyone my age is trying to think of a childhood book, I always offer 'Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack" or “Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret”. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/23 "2015-11-04T16:16:45Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Very long time ago, a children’s book about a parrot with either a very short tail or a missing tail, and pirates, and somehow the parrot becomes a hero. > > I remember it being printed in black and white and one other color, a sort of blue/turquoise/dark cyan color rather than full color. > [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Maybe it was in the [Book Trails series?](http://p2.la-img.com/359/14794/4746508_1_l.jpg) Nope, it was a stand-alone book, on its own. One of those very short kid’s books. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/24 "2015-11-04T17:11:36Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Might be the [The Tripods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tripods) series, the alien “masters” lived in domed cities to hold in their atmosphere. And the human Resistance did live in the mountains. By jove, I think it was book 2 The City of Gold and Lead. The cover looks familiar (edition with the boy in the foreground). Thank you, I’ll have to read the series now. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/25 "2015-11-04T17:19:59Z")
Not expecting any identification here – in part, because “different country from that of the majority of SDMB action”. Just posting because of a pleasant and comical memory being called up. The book in question was borrowed from the children’s section of our local library, in the UK nearly 60 years ago. It must have been by a Briton who was familiar with India – natural-history-based fiction, essentially realistic à la _Tarka the Otter_, but for kids: contained four stories about families of respective different kinds of Indian wild animal in their native habitat. I liked the stories perfectly well, but recall no details about them – would guess them to have been competently written, but not works of genius. The four species involved were: tiger, elephant, bear, and deer. The thing I still remember with delight, is incidental to the book itself. Some previous borrower had clearly been less than super-impressed with it / its subject matter. Written in pencil in a childish hand on the first page of three of the stories, were brief comments, with a couple of mis-spellings, as follows. “I don’t like tigers.” “Elephants are clumsey.” “Bears are firice – I don’t like them.” (There was nothing written about the deer – the juvenile critic would seem to have considered them acceptable.) While writing in library books is, of course, a deplorable thing to do; the unknown kid’s pithy comments totally cracked my parents up with laughter. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/26 "2015-11-04T17:22:36Z")
I remember reading an environmentalist picture book about a planet full of vaguely camel/llamalike creatures before it is suddenly colonized by a race of blue-skinned aliens who immediately begin developing the planet into an industrial society while using up its resources and causing huge amounts of pollution. Said aliens end up leaving the planet for greener pastures after having exhausted its resources and the camel/llamalike creatures look hopefully at the planet becoming green again. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/27 "2015-11-04T17:26:33Z")
I asked about this one [before](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=603725&highlight=kerbs), but with no luck. > [@](#): > > I don’t know why this is bugging me, but it is. When I was a child, some time in the 1980s, I remember reading a book. I have no idea what the book was about, but for some reason I remember it had a weird explanation for kerbs at the side of roads. > > I think it equated cars with vicious animals, or that they had at one time been sentient, and they had to be hemmed in with high stone walls in order to keep them on the road. Over time, the cars had got used to being on the road, and the walls were able to be reduced in height, so that the low kerbs we have nowadays are the result. > > That sounds totally weird now I’ve written it, and I’m sure it was not in any way central to the plot, but does this ring a bell with anyone? ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/28 "2015-11-04T18:12:27Z")
Let me give this a try cause I would love to find it. It was a book of horror short stories probably for kids and teens somewhere @ 1970. It had a story where a person buys a can that has lost the label in a grocery store, for a discount. A mystery food as it were. It is some kind of tomatoey thing but becomes terrifying. That’s all I recall. ---
**Author:** ![Melaradark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Melaradark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melaradark)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/29 "2015-11-04T18:19:09Z")
Wow, so many people who struggle with remembering the name of books! Yay, glad it’s not just me. I’m of no help on any of these, the only one that rings a bell I think was answered- the Tripod series (which is still one of my favorites). ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/30 "2015-11-04T19:47:54Z")
> [@CGav8r](#): > > A book I read in elementary school in the late '70s was about a kid nicknamed “Mouse”, who like to do funny graffiti, IIRC. In a city park he tries to climb up some boulders/rocks because there is a small, naturally occuring slot in the side of the rock and he wants to paint “Insert Coin Here”. I think he had to deal with a bully as well. This sounds like _Lucky Star_, by Cathy Cassidy. ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/31 "2015-11-04T20:08:45Z")
There was a book about a shoemaker/cobbler in seaport town who had a hard time getting any business until the captain of a cruise ship offered to let him open a shop on his ship. It was wonderfully illustrated but I can’t remember the name of it. ---
**Author:** ![CGav8r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@CGav8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CGav8r)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/32 "2015-11-04T20:43:44Z")
> [@pinkfreud](#): > > This sounds like _Lucky Star_, by Cathy Cassidy. I looked up that book, and it wasn’t it, but thank you for the suggestion. I did a few searches and for the first time, I think I found the book; “The 18th Emergency” by Betsy Byars. I’m going to try to get a copy and if it’s the correct book, I’m going to give it to my son. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/33 "2015-11-04T20:59:19Z")
Here’s another one. It was the first book I took out of the “Library” in first grade. It was a kids picture book set in Panama and had to do with a golden frog. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/34 "2015-11-04T22:19:56Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I remember reading an environmentalist picture book about a planet full of vaguely camel/llamalike creatures before it is suddenly colonized by a race of blue-skinned aliens who immediately begin developing the planet into an industrial society while using up its resources and causing huge amounts of pollution. Said aliens end up leaving the planet for greener pastures after having exhausted its resources and the camel/llamalike creatures look hopefully at the planet becoming green again. This was “The Wump World” by Bill Peet. > **[The Wump World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wump_World)** > > The Wump World (1970) is a children's book by Bill Peet that takes place on an imaginary planet. It is about the near destruction of the only habitat of creatures known as Wumps. These Wumps look somewhat like a cross between a capybara (sometimes called a water hog) and a moose. > The story about these Wumps takes place on their own planet, hence the name The Wump World. It is a small version of Earth, containing only a few rivers and lakes, along with several grasslands and forests. A race of b... ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/35 "2015-11-04T22:45:17Z")
I would have sworn the one I was thinking of was by Lois Duncan, but I can’t come up with it. I read it in elementary school or possibly early in junior high, so it had to have been published published pre-1980. It was older kid/young YA, about a girl with ESP. I don’t remember much about what she did with said ESP, but I remember a side plot was putting on a play about a haunted sorority or some such (“The Ghost of Delta Delta,” “Phantom of Delta Delta,” something like that). I think it was made into a TV movie or after-school special. I can even remember the cover. It was a girl with an ear-length bobbed perm, with a fuzzy light hovering over her. But the name escapes me entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/36 "2015-11-04T23:02:35Z")
Here’s one I would know if I heard the title. It takes place in the British colonies in North America, when the French are still in Canada and maybe New York. There is a young white girl whose settlement is attacked by Indians. I think some of her family is killed, but she is taken away to live with the Indians, and has two sisters who foster her. She is blonde, which really makes her stand out. I don’t remember her name or the name of anyone else, or what tribe it was, but I’m pretty sure it was in what is now New York state. Eventually she comes to regard her captors as family, and when she has a chance to leave she declines. It’s bugging the hell out of me not to remember the title because I know I read the book more than once. But I haven’t thought about it in years, and had forgotten it until this thread came up. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/37 "2015-11-04T23:34:17Z")
Oh, I have bunches I can’t remember the titles of. Some have stumped the goodreads folks. - In a book set way back when (no later than the 30s) a girl, probably between ages 9 and 12, loses a baby sibling either at birth or soon after. Mom has severe post partum depression, and an aunt probably looks after the kids. People sit on the roof which is somehow significant to the plot. - In another book set way back when (even longer ago, the teens or 20s maybe?) a ten or so year old boy’s mother takes in a small girl who washed ashore after a shipwreck. I don’t think the girl spoke. The titanic was likely referenced in some way, but maybe as another recent wreck. - A girl goes to visit her grandparents, and grandpa is going senile. The island the grandparents live on is described as “shaped like a mitten.” - Two human children, a boy and a girl, are raised on another planet by furry humanoids (maybe the aliens have no visible eyes?). They were kept apart and only meet as preteens because the aliens were alarmed that the boy hit the girl the one time they were together as toddlers. ---
**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/38 "2015-11-04T23:46:14Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#): > > In the nineties, I read a book about children flying. There was some child who appeared and taught them how to – it was pretty much like swimming but in the air. And the children used to meet and fly together but they kept it a secret from their parents. IIRC, the child who taught them was a mystery: didn’t go to the school, didn’t have parents, and no one knew where his/her home was. That’s _The Summer Birds_ by Penelope Farmer. Lovely book. I love her _Charlotte Sometimes_ even more. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/39 "2015-11-04T23:59:50Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > OK, here’s one. It’s about a very poor girl in an area like Appalachia. At one point she and her classmates catch their teacher under the sink putting slugs in their lunches so that they will be forced to eat the more nutritious school lunch instead of the lard on white bread they brought in. In another passage, she has taken out a school library book and treasures it until she accidentally drops it in a mud puddle. She’s so distraught over what happened, but can’t bear bringing it back like that, so she throws it into a pond. Help! I remembered that it was a Lois Lenski book, and a little Google-fu revealed that it’s titled “Cotton In My Sack”. The family was from the Deep South. On top of throwing the book into a pond, she also stopped going to school because she was afraid she would get in trouble for damaging the book. I read and loved that book too! 🙂 Here’s mine. In this case, it was from my high school library, even though it was probably more suitable for upper elementary. Still, it was a good story. The first line in the book was “Who the hell is Sonja Henie?” Long story made short: A pond is drained for unrelated reasons, and reveals a car and trailer from the 1940s, with several skeletons inside, and a little girl is holding a Sonja Henie doll. The rest of the book is devoted to solving the mystery - identifying the family and then finding out who did this and why. The book probably came out in the early to mid 1970s. Sonja Henie was an ice skater and actress in the 20s, 30s, and 40s. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/40 "2015-11-05T00:20:51Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > That’s _The Summer Birds_ by Penelope Farmer. Lovely book. I love her _Charlotte Sometimes_ even more. Oh you’re right! I’m delighted that my “question” was answered. Thank you! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570.md?page=3)