Hello all, this is my first thread on SDMB so forgive any blunders!
Some time in the mid-1980s or so I read a book from the local library. I have no idea what the name of the book was, nor the name of the author (although I think it was written by a woman). I don’t know when the book was published, but it probably wasn’t too many years before I read it. The book was probably written by an American author. The book was probably written for older children, but would’ve been readable by an adult. It was a mystery of some sort; I think there was some sort of twist involving the identity of one of the characters. It was set in New York. One of the characters had a cat (or maybe dog) named “Manhattan”, causing inevitable problems when trying to find it by calling out “Manhattan!” in the local park. I think the main character was a teenager or oldish child. On the front cover of the book was a sticker or embossed thingy stating that the book had won or been nominated for a major literature prize… maybe the Pulitzer?
On reflection the author’s first name might have been Mary. But might not!
Can anyone help identify the book based on these very vague clues?!
This is a bit of a WAG but might it be something by Madeleine L’Engle? I know she had a series about a family that lived in New York and her stories usually had dogs.
Doesn’t look like it. I remember the book having a slightly off-beat feel to it, but I don’t remember it being fantastical as such.
However… her Wikipedia article mentions her winning something called the “Newbery Medal”, which seems to ring bells. Scanning through the list of winners and honourable mentions in the latter’s Wikipedia article hasn’t found me the book… but one of the works listed, The Westing Game seems like it has some elements in common with “my” book; for example, I’m sure I can recall an apartment building featuring in a way that was more than simply an ordinary place where one or more of the characters lived.
The sticker or embossed seal is usually a sign of a Newbery Award Winner or Honor book. Here’s a list of all the books honored. Do any of the titles ring a bell?
I don’t think it’d be Madeleine L’Engle; her winner, A Wrinkle in Time, is nothing like the description.
For what it’s worth, this sort of conflation is extremely common. That’s what makes threads on this sort (where someone asks us to figure out what book or movie or TV show or whatever they vaguely remember) so frustrating to us. If it’s been that long since someone read or saw it, then much of the time, perhaps most of the time, they have conflated several things in their memory and perhaps fleshed it out with images or ideas that weren’t in any of the things that they’re vaguely remembering.
Yeah, it took me ages to find the book I was trying to remember about the kid who won a contest to go to a space station, and helped deal with a communist plot to sabotage the station once he was there, because that’s not one book - the contest part is “Island in the Sky” by Clarke and the sabotage part is a different book by another fellow (that I did identify (and get a copy of), but the name is eluding me at the moment).
