That only leaves one unidentified book from my childhood. So far, so good.
If you liked Little House on the Prairie books, Never Miss a Sunset was one that I could never put down when I was about 12ish.
Apparently, it is a series, but I only read and re-read this one over and over again.
Yep, that’s the one.
The author is Anna Elizabeth Bennett. It’s out of print now, but it was rereleased in paperback within the last 20 years. I bought my copy new when my kids (now 20 and 21) were small. So you ought to be able to find a used copy for not too much. Or, there’s always inter-library loan, if your branch doesn’t have a copy and you don’t need to own it.
What’s the other chidhood book you can’t track down?
I don’t remember too much about it, except that there were three English children. (I know that, they started out drinking ginger beer.) They’d been sent to stay with a relative or something, one of those stories that leaves the kids pretty much on their own. Along the way they found a cloak that made one invisible & a ring that had some magic power. I remember a gazebo or summerhouse type thing, something like that in a garden? And I think there might have been time travel involved. I know it doesn’t sound like much, for me to have such a fondness for it, but I remember the way it made me feel when I read it. I’m curious about it.
I remembered a bunch of science books by an author named Herbert S. Zim which I read and re-read when I was in the first grade. The Sun was my favorite… I even remember the cover.
I will say… my mental image of him looks nothing like the photograph. I was expecting someone more… waspy, with horned-rimmed glasses.
One series that hasn’t been mentioned is Syndy Taylor’s “All-of-a-Kind-Family.” They were my first introduction to Orthodox Judaism.
I also loved Maria Killilea’s “Karen” and “With Love From Karen.”
To add to my previous list
The Green Knowe books by Lucy Boston
Si
Airplanes and trucks and trains, fire engines, boats and ships, and building and wrecking machines.
By George Zaffo
I think the title explains it all, great for kids who loved vehicles. I still have this one on my shelf, great full page illustrations by Zaffo.
Could you be conflating a few books?
The ginger beer/ring/relative reference makes me think of The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis (my favorite of the Narnian Chronicles).
The summerhouse/gazebo makes me think of The Swing in the Summerhouse by Jane Langton (This is the second of the Hall Family Chronicle; The Diamond in the Window I mention above was the first, and they go on from there.)
The Three Investigators series
Trixie Belden
Nancy Drew
Hardy Boys
Black Stallion series
Danny Dunn series
Space Cat series
“The Hero from Otherwhere” by Jay Williams (an all-time favorite)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Willy Wonka and the Great Glass Elevator
The Alvin Fernald series
The Matt Christopher sports books (even though I pretty much hated sports)
Encyclopedia Brown series
Anything about Star Trek (the James Blish series, the animated series novelizations, and all the original stories that started coming out in the late 70s)
The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and Runaway Ralph (and the rest of the Cleary books, but those two were my favorites)
Oh, and all the Oz books, from *The Wizard of Oz * clear through to Glinda of Oz, with a couple “Oz” books by other authors.
And, I hate to admit this, as it shows how incredibly nerdy I was…but I loved browsing through the World Book encyclopedia. I’d grab a volume and go through it…that was the first time I ever saw a picture of a Surinam toad (and hopefully, the last :eek: )
Sounds like an E. Nesbit book, but I’m not sure which one it might be… The Enchanted Castle had a magic ring which made them invisible in the first chapters. No cloak, though, and later the ring did different sorts of things. In the book you remember was there a bit with statues coming to life? There was a pavilion sort of thing in the garden with the statues. Also, the children made some fake people out of clothing stuffed with rags (to be the audience for a play they put on) and those came to life, too.
I loved these too. Once my own daughter was diagnosed (she has CP, like Karen) I couldn’t read them for years… I did finally reread them – it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come in regards to treating the condition. Maria Killilea is and always will be one of my gold-letter heroes.
Enid Blyton
Beatrix Potter
And last but definitely not least the Jennings and Derbyshire books by Anthony Buckeridge which literally made me cry with laughter on many occasions.
Any Hawaii dopers remember these books?
Japanese
momotaro
issunboshi
one where the guy rides a turtle under the sea
Hawaiian
one with the dog that can changes sizes
one where the princess dies but is brought back to life by the pueo
(owl) Kahalaopuna?
one about Kamapua’a (pig god)
You are living my dream. I loved the books and the TV series. In fact I just found out a company used to sell doll house like replicas of the Ingalls house (after the kitchen was put on), The Mercantile, the post office/Doc Bakers office and the school house/church. I have the pictures and the floor plans. I am going to build these and try to decorate them as much as possible how they looked in the TV show.
Where the Red Fern grows and Tuck Everlasting were books I enjoyed. Both moved me as a child and again when I read them as an adult.
I was about nine when I discovered our library’s collection of Edward Rowe Snow books. Now I’d consider them to be great bathroom books - collections of short accounts of odd stories dealing with the sea, especially New England connections. Then I just found them thrilling. Oh, and the books went a long way towards confirming what I was being taught in CCD about humanity being fallen.
Certainly, when I got a copy of the book Alive a few years later, nothing in that book shocked me. Which bothered some people who saw me reading it. 
One of my favorite books, again at the library, was Sharp Ears, about a baby sperm whale. I think I was the only person taking it out for a couple of years there… And I’d hate to see a copy today, since I’m sure that it wouldn’t be able to stand up to my memories.
Robb White’s naval adventure books were something I discovered about that same time.
I also devoured all the Marjorie Reynolds horse books I could find.
Other favorites include:
Narnia
The Three Investigators (The real editions, with Alfred Hitchcock marketing, dammit, not these new editions!)
The Great Brain (Though my favorite of those books was Me and My Little Brain)
Jim Kjelgaard’s various dog books were great fun, too.
Farley Mowat’s Lost in the Barrens (It was years before I encountered his more popular works. And then I hoovered them up.)
And on a slightly younger scale, I really, really liked Drummer Hoff Fired It Off, and can still recite some of the rhyme.
I also learned that many great books have deservedly unknown sequels. While I lloved 101 Dalmations, Starlight Barking was so not worth the effort it took to find a copy in pre-internet days.
Yes! Once Upon a Birthday, and the Faraway Tree series! IIRC, Enid Blyton was quite the prolific author.
That’s the one! I looked it up and read a little of it. It’s the book. I’ll have to find a copy now and read it all the way through. Thank you.
Oh good! I’m glad – you’ll really enjoy it again, I’ll bet. If you haven’t read Nesbit’s other books, you should check them out as well. I find that she is a children’s author who really holds up on rereading as an adult.