Identify this children's book, if you can.

When I was much younger…

Okay, somewhere in the cretaceous era, I read a book about a young boy who went off to “summer vacation” with his family to a cabin, or some remote location,where he was upset because he couldn’t listen to baseball games.

I remember him learning how to judge lighning by counting the seconds between the flash and the thunder, and something about not being able to prime the well pump… And that’s all I got. My teacher confiscated the book because I was reading during firemaking practice, and I never got it back.

Strike a chord with anyone? I want desperately to find and read this book.

B.

I can’t help with the name of this book…but I’m just wondering, what kind of school did you go to where they taught you how to set fires?! They try to discourage that kind of thing nowadays! :smiley:

ME

Back when I was in school, using sticks to make fire was big mojo.

b.

And after mastering sticks, the students would proceed to learn about that radical new invention, the wheel. :smiley:

WHEEL BAD!! OG SMASH!!

I don’t have an idea what this book is, but recently, I, too, had a “have to find the name of a children’s book that I have only a random partial recollection of” experience and… to cut to the chase, I emailed the kind folks at the Books of Wonder in NYC. They are experts in children’s books. Shoot them an email with any details you can muster, even down to the type of binding and especially when this book was around, or when you remember reading this. For example, I told them I thought the kid was wearing a hat and it had something to do with him sitting on a fence. The nice person who responded to my inquiry didn’t know the book I was searching for, but she referred me to the** NY Public Library**. I don’t live anywhere near NYC, but the library has an on-line searchable database. After a few (OK, more than a few) keyword searches, a title popped up that sounded SO familiar and I promptly ordered 2 copies from used bookstores (it was out of print).

Perhaps you can try this route.

Strikes a definite chord with me; I know I read this back then, too.

But I have no idea what it was.

Um, glad I could help?

Thanks for the direction, folks! Will post again if I find it.

b.

Another help with finding children’s books: www.loganberrybooks.com/stump.html . It costs $2 to submit a stumper, but you can take that off the cost of the book.