# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/41 "2015-11-05T02:17:13Z")
Tweenage girl on a future Earth that’s had an environmental disaster and is largely wasteland wanders away from her father’s vehicle and slips through a time rift to roughly mid-20th Century Appalachia. She befriends a boy in that time, whose grandmother is oddly knowledgeable and wise for a hillbilly. She has conflicts with the family’s neighbors. At the end, it’s implied that the grandmother is an extraterrestrial posing as a poor human woman for some reason. She sends the girl back home through another time rift, with a cardboard box with a fox cub and rabbit kit (which are extinct in the girl’s time). I feel like I’ve asked this before but I can’t find it in a search. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/42 "2015-11-05T02:38:18Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > 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! 🙂 I cannot thank you and **Dung Beetle** enough for solving this mystery which has bugged me for decades. I looked at the lists thanks to **DB** and while Lois Lenski sounded familiar, I never would have remembered Cotton in My Sack. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/43 "2015-11-05T05:00:06Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > I cannot thank you and **Dung Beetle** enough for solving this mystery which has bugged me for decades. I looked at the lists thanks to **DB** and while Lois Lenski sounded familiar, I never would have remembered Cotton in My Sack. No problem! Thank YOU for reminding me of a story I had long forgotten, but really enjoyed. ---
**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 5, 2015, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/44 "2015-11-05T14:07:03Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#): > > Oh you’re right! I’m delighted that my “question” was answered. Thank you! You’re welcome! Seriously, if you can find _Charlotte Sometimes_, read it. It’s the same main character. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/45 "2015-11-05T14:12:14Z")
**Colophon** writes: “…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.” For a brief moment, this gave me thoughts of _Watership Down_ – the rabbits try to figure out motor vehicles (_hrududil_ in rabbit-language): they speculate and discuss as to how menacing the vehicles are as enemies to rabbit-kind, and whether they are or aren’t sentient, or indeed alive at all. However, there’s for sure nothing in the relevant passage of _WD_, about kerbs ! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/46 "2015-11-05T14:19:57Z")
A boy riding in a car in Missouri is in a minor accident and somehow finds himself in far-future Missouri where a protected wilderness area is still protected, but now by a violent man in a post-apocalyptic feudal society, like how royalty would invest groundskeepers with the task of keeping their private hunting reserves free of poachers. That’s been bugging me for a long time now. It couldn’t have come out any later than 1994-1995. ---
**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 5, 2015, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/47 "2015-11-05T14:55:31Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > I cannot thank you and **Dung Beetle** enough for solving this mystery which has bugged me for decades. I looked at the lists thanks to **DB** and while Lois Lenski sounded familiar, I never would have remembered Cotton in My Sack. Shoot, I was \>\< this close! 🙂 I bow to **nearwildheaven** ’s superior Google-fu. ---
**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, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/48 "2015-11-05T15:15:37Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > You’re welcome! Seriously, if you can find _Charlotte Sometimes_, read it. It’s the same main character. You know, I might have actually read that book. The synopsis sounds very vaguely familiar, and I think I liked it. But The Summer Birds stuck with me more because that mental image of children swooping through the sky was just so magical. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/49 "2015-11-05T19:30:06Z")
Some short stories from grade school. I’m just curious if anyone else read them. A couple of kids kill someone’s fish, and are forced to sit in a boat all night until they catch enough to replace them. They’re bitten by a lot of mosquitoes. A couple of kids pick all of the low hanging peaches off of some trees, but in the end it just made the peaches up top grow extra large. Someone has a house which, for whatever reason, has various flavors of pop coming out of the plumbing. Sci-fi: the only thing I can remember about this, is that the flying insects (?) on this particular planet attack by folding their wings back and fly straight down like bombs. Not much to go on 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/50 "2015-11-05T20:10:04Z")
I read a book in junior high about a WWI veteran suffering from shell shock. He had relocated to the Appalachia mountains for a quiet life. Meets a girl that is administering a new inoculation program for the hill people. The leader of one of the hillbilly clans doesn’t trust this new medicine, makes threats and eventually abducts the lady. The guy has to overcome his own psychological trauma to go help her. great book. I’d love to read it again but have no idea who wrote it or the title. Surprising that a book that old (probably the 1940’s) is so relevant to todays victims of PTSD Somebody could get quite wealthy developing a search engine for books. plug in basic plot words and get a list of books. shell shock, Appalachia and inoculation for example ---
**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 5, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/51 "2015-11-05T20:25:08Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Someone has a house which, for whatever reason, has various flavors of pop coming out of the plumbing. That sounds like [Mr. Pudgins by Ruth Christoffer Carlsen.](http://amzn.com/1477827331) ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/52 "2015-11-05T21:23:54Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > 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. Dammit, I don’t remember the title, but I had that book and that’s the one story I remember! It was a book of one-page horror stories, and the title of that story may have been “The Can.” The can contained what the guy identified as one puny stewed tomato in juice. Some time after he eats the tomato he starts feeling weak. He goes to the doctor, and x-rays reveal that a lizard-like thing has hatched in his innards. The punch line is the doctor saying the lizard is not eating him alive, “Apparently it only…drinks.” ---
**Author:** ![MickNickMaggies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/59ef9b/32.png) [@MickNickMaggies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MickNickMaggies)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/53 "2015-11-05T22:20:53Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > 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. ‘A Child’s Garden of Death’, Richard Forrest. And the Lois Duncan, ESP book…was it ‘A Gift of Magic’? ---
**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 5, 2015, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/54 "2015-11-05T22:27:47Z")
> [@MickNickMaggies](#): > > ‘A Child’s Garden of Death’, Richard Forrest. > > And the Lois Duncan, ESP book…was it ‘A Gift of Magic’? It could be - the title didn’t ring a bell, but that 1971 publishing date could place it in my school’s library at the right time. I’ll have to track it down and see. I know I was reading a lot of Duncan’s semi-horror stuff then, so it would make sense. ---
**Author:** ![BeeGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@BeeGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeeGee)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/55 "2015-11-05T22:36:46Z")
I can remember reading a book around 1971 which I _thought_ was called The Awakening, but it appears not. It was about a girl around age 13 who lived in Soviet Russia with her grandmother and sometimes her mother. I think the mother was sent off to a camp for awhile and came back pretty done in. Maybe the grandmother was religious, but the granddaughter was a good little soviet. ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/56 "2015-11-06T01:17:41Z")
Ok… I have a book that I have vague memories of… Can’t remember all the plot points, but it will occasionally pop into my head. This thread made me think of it, and now it’s driving me crazy. It was about a guy who was being chased and hunted by another guy (or group… I can’t recall). The guy who was being chased used a number of different tricks to elude capture. I think one of the things he did was hide under sand, using a reed or hollow plant to breath through. I also remember a cave. The title “Death Hunt” came to me, but that isn’t it. That is a Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson movie… Googling has turned up nothing, but I remember only vague plot points at this stage… It almost feels like a dream, but I did read this book when I was a kid, dammit! (Why oh why did I click on this thread? I will be tortured all night!) ---
**Author:** ![Bonaventure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@Bonaventure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonaventure)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/57 "2015-11-06T05:25:01Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > Ok… > > I have a book that I have vague memories of… Can’t remember all the plot points, but it will occasionally pop into my head. This thread made me think of it, and now it’s driving me crazy. > > It was about a guy who was being chased and hunted by another guy (or group… I can’t recall). The guy who was being chased used a number of different tricks to elude capture. I think one of the things he did was hide under sand, using a reed or hollow plant to breath through. I also remember a cave. > > The title “Death Hunt” came to me, but that isn’t it. That is a Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson movie… Googling has turned up nothing, but I remember only vague plot points at this stage… It almost feels like a dream, but I did read this book when I was a kid, dammit! > > (Why oh why did I click on this thread? I will be tortured all night!) Nah, that’s an easy one: Deathwatch by Robb White > **[Deathwatch (novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deathwatch_(novel))** > > Deathwatch is an American 1972 novel written by Robb White. The book was awarded the 1973 Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery from the Mystery Writers of America, and was an Outstanding Book of the Year by The New York Times. > Its plot features a skilled and successful hunter and lawyer, Madec, who receives a rare permit to shoot bighorn sheep in California's Mojave Desert for seven days. He hires a timid college student named Ben as a guide. After Madec accidentally shoots an old prospector,... ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/58 "2015-11-06T07:44:03Z")
> [@Katriona](#): > > 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. **And This Is Laura** , by Ellen Conford? ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/59 "2015-11-06T12:56:14Z")
There was a book I read in the early 70s but may have been written earlier like in the 50s. I think it was a collection of stories (although each story may have just been a different chapter) about a boy who builds robots out of discarded tin cans. I remember he built a small one he named “Campbell” because it was made out of Campbell’s Soup cans. ---
**Author:** ![Wednesday\_Evening](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Wednesday\_Evening](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wednesday_Evening)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-a-book-you-read-and-liked-as-a-kid-but-cant-remember-its-title/736570/60 "2015-11-06T14:33:02Z")
This thread inspired me to do a Google search on a book I have wondered about for years. It involved kids, a babysitter and a magic bathtub. I think I found it! [Mr. Pudgins](http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Pudgins-Book-Crush-Rediscovery/dp/1477827331/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446820036&sr=8-1&keywords=mr.+pudgins). It does not seem to be available at our local library, but it is in print again. My kids might like it, maybe I will order a copy. [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=2) [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=4)