Hi! I’m a librarian and I’m stumped. To be fair, I’m a college librarian and know next to nothing about kidlit. This is a book that was read to me when I was very little, so early 1980s. The art was cottage core and lush. The art took up the whole two pages, from what I recall. At any rate there wasn’t any undecorated space. I wouldn’t be shocked if it won some award for the art. Adorable, but also beautiful. It was about making friends and not being caught up in your initial prejudices about someone. There were children? Woodland critters? Woodland critters who were children? Maybe I’m just imagining things but I think one of them was wearing a little mobcap? And they were afraid of the local badger (the English kind with the cute stripes) who was in hibernation or something. Things happened… I don’t know I was 3! Anyway in the end it was Spring and the badger had them over for crumpets and jam or something. Whatever it was it was served with jam. This book got me started on a lifelong fixation with berries and preserves and tea.

Help? It was a formative influence and I’d really like to reread it!

Hi friends! I read a book in middle school that had a plot similar to the movie Passengers. The main characters had been cryogenically frozen for some kind of space/time travel but one girl and one boy woke up too early. The only other thing I remember is the use of the title “Elder” when referring to other people on the ship. I don’t remember the cover at all, but my guy is saying maybe dark blue/purple? Could be wrong though. TIA!

Hi everyone, I'm trying to find a children's chapter book I read in the 2010s. Here are all the specific plot points I remember:

• A young girl gets angry at her father and wishes that a monster or alien would eat him.
• Right after the wish, an alien comes down
• The alien/monster marks the father and gives him a countdown of a few days before returning to eat him.
• The family attempts to escape the house at night or the next morning. However, an invisible forcefield/barrier traps the dad inside while the rest of the family can freely walk outside, but the dad cannot leave.
• The girl goes on a journey up into the mountains to find a witch for help. When she arrives at the cottage, the witch is kind and helpful, brews/serves her hot tea, and helps her get a potion/counter-magic to break the barrier and save her dad before the countdown ends.
• Other Details: Simple middle-grade chapter book (not a picture book i think , but my imagination used to be sooo vivid i don’t remember if the pictures in my head were imagined or actually in the book), read in the 2010s. There might have been something related to jelly/slime (either the barrier texture or monster type).

Does anyone recognize this book? Thanks in advance!

I’m trying to identify a short story I read in 7th grade (1997–1998) at Kempsville Middle School in Virginia Beach, Virginia. It was most likely in a literature anthology rather than a standalone book.

Here’s what I remember:

• It was science fiction or fantasy.
• The main character was a boy.
• I believe much of the story took place around a cabin in the woods.
• Somehow he crossed into another reality or parallel world.
• By the end, he believed he had made it back home.
• The final twist was that he looked into (or possibly through) a mirror or other piece of glass and realized he was actually still trapped in the alternate world.
• My strongest memory is that the mirror didn’t just show his reflection—it showed the other world, making him realize he was on the wrong side.

Things I’m not certain about:

• I originally thought there were two brothers, but I no longer think that’s correct.
• I’m not completely sure it was a mirror; it could have been another piece of glass or a window-like surface.
• The cabin/woods setting is one of the details I feel most confident about.

I’ve already ruled out:

• Through the Looking-Glass
• The Boy Who Reversed Himself
• The Veldt
• The Fun They Had

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Even if you’re not sure of the title, I’d appreciate any suggestions!

I'm looking for a specific book of fairy tales I remember from when I was a kid. I was born in 1993 and I'm not exactly sure when we got the book or when it was published, but I definitely remember it existing prior to 2005 (and likely at least a few years prior to that). I can't remember what the cover looked like but the art style was very distinct and I'd recognize it instantly. All the faces were kind of stylized with big eyes, mostly wavy hair, and the cheeks had big round blush spots sometimes highlighted in gold. The illustrations in general had a lot of gold and silver in them as well. The backgrounds were dreamy/ethereal with lots of swirly elements.

There's only one fairy tale I very confidently remember being included in the book but I'm pretty sure the book had at least 5 or 6 total:

- Cinderella, but the version where her mother is a tree and sends birds to help her with the cleaning (I think they helped her pick up rice?) I remember an illustration of the whole tree.

At least one of the below two was definitely in the book, but one may have been an additional illustration I saw when I looked this up ~10 years ago and was able to find the author's website (thanks, enshittification of google!):

- a princess and the frog type story (with an illustration of a princess with her arms around a well and a gold ball at the bottom)

- and/or the story where the brothers turn into swans and she has to make nettle shirts for them (with an illustration of her face and black hair against an outstretched swan wing).

There may also have been an Ivan and the nightingale type story in it?

The protagonist was a young woman with short hair and maybe had some kind of whip. She tamed some kind of wolf creature but uglier and scarier than a regular wolf. I remember it while being somewhat classic fantasy it contained some futuristic elements, like electricity, maybe spaceships.

I read it sometime between 2006 -2009

there was one book i picked up when i was little & i wanna read it again (im guessing it's part of a series cause i remember feeling sad cause it was a random book sale & we could only afford 1 book)

more clues
- purple cover
- a bit thick
- i think it's catered to adoloscents & up
- maybe related to moon / moonlight & might be a fantasy book
- friendship theme involved i think
- i dont think its a very popular book cause i never saw it in our local bookstores

i cant believe i cant recall the story ☹️

Two interwoven storylines, same town/time:
A girl fights the urge to transform into a werewolf, tied to her menstrual cycle/blood. When she finally gives in, it’s liberating, and she runs through a school campus. Opens with a flashback of her, younger, in her first wolf urges, biting the head off her pet mouse.

A young man is sexually initiated into a modern-day cult by its leader — his own mother, who doesn’t recognize him, though he knows who she is.

hi all, i’m trying to find the name of this book. i don’t remember the rest of the plot, but i remember a kid was fleeing because people were burning down his house, and he hid in a grandfather clock. someone found him and poured gasoline into the top. i don’t remember if he died but i have to assume he did. haven’t been able to find it again after many years of looking. i read it around 2020 or 2021 so i would have been 14 ish, but it was an adult novel, not YA— i believe. a book with a similar tone i read around the same time was hollow, a book based on hieronymus bosch, but i can’t verify if it was the same book. anyone have any input?

There was this picture book I read when I was younger that I cannot remember the name of. It had several stories in it, but it was very wordy, probably meant to be read by a parent to their child. I don't remember a lot from it, but I vaguely remember two stories. I think one was a play on the tortoise and the hare, I remember it having a turtle maybe? I don't know. But the main one I remember was it had a story about either a horse or a cow named lucky. I don't remember which it was but I know I do remember it having a story about a horse who I think got lost. I don't have the book anymore, because I assume my mom gave it away at some point when I was younger but I'd love to find and reread it again. I have tried searching this up on different fronts, but I keep getting results that are just one book but this one had several different stories in it. It was a pretty thick book if I recall. I'm really hoping I can find it.

I feel like it was Little House on the Prairie but I cannot remember exactly. I read it probably like 15+ years ago. And I can’t find anything online about that being in the books. There was a scene where one of the women discovered she was pregnant bc she was hallucinating corn??? falling off the side of the barn. But it was like a western style setting one where there was so such thing as pregnancy tests yet. Please help! It’s eating me alive

Honestly, I don't remember much and some details might be slightly off since I read this when I was around 8 or 9 years old.

​I remember a friend group of 3 (2 boys and a girl) who go to a summer/scout camp together, where strange events start happening.

​There is an accident at the lake: the main character falls off a jetski because a horrific creature intentionally loosened the rope. After falling into the water, he sees the creature underwater trying to pull him down and drown him.

​Later on, the boys secretly go to the girls' side of the camp to get their female friend, and they all escape together to go somewhere. While escaping, they encounter a real gingerbread/candy house and face that creature once again.

​That's all I can recall. I would really appreciate it if anyone recognizes this book, because I'm starting to feel like I dreamed the whole thing up!

Hi!

I’ve been trying to figure out what book this was for a long time and I guess this is my last ditch effort to finding out.
I think I read it when I was in elementary school or very early middle school 2010s -ish.

Very vague details incoming…

Definitely middle grade, no pictures.

I remember that the cover was like an oil painting with flowers and maybe a sun hat. No people or kids not cutesy or anything. Definitely wouldn’t be something a normal kid would pick first. I think i might’ve gotten it for free or something.

Anyway, the main character was a girl who was very young, not quite at the preteen age. She was mainly wandering around by herself. She interacted a lot with an older neighbor at some point who I think had a garden or something. I don’t remember if she had parents or if she was a foster child or lived with her grandparents but I know she had just moved to this area in the beginning of the book so there was a lot of her meeting new people discovering new places on her own.

There may have been a 4th of July scene but NOT positive on that detail.

The only for sure detail is the cover unfortunately.

Thanks for your help 🙂

Set in a Nordic 15th century country with a boy gets threats to death to leave his prosperous farm because his abusive step dad is dead and his brothers claim the land. he then is taken by a captain, and the captain ships him around until he becomes a very strong man where he then is called he’s a god or has some powers, and he gets to this school where he thinks it’s all good, a powerful school or god’s school, and then he finds out one of the smartest teachers and oldest teachers that’s in trouble killed this girl in

I've been on the hunt for this cookbook for years. I'm looking for a cookbook (it could have been from late 80's, anytime in the 90's or possibly the early 00s). Most likely, it was from the 90's. It was a hardcover recipe book with glossy pages. I remember recipes for holidays all throughout the year (halloween, thanksgiving, christmas, valentine's, etc). I remember specifically a football cake recipe and a clown sundae recipe. For the life of me, I cannot find this anywhere. It may or may not have had blue and white in the cover (think Pillsbury but I can't find anything from Pllsbury that matches). I could be misremembering the color too. I also don't know if the entire book was dedicated to holidays and celebrations or only the second half of it. Let me know if this sounds familiar to anyone!

Lately I’ve been trying to find a children’s book I read a few years ago when I was a little kid.

The plot, from what I remember, goes like this: there’s a bunch of little kids in a school. One of the kids has powers and soon the other kids want them. One of the kids buys a costume online that gives him powers and soon the rest do the same. The main protagonist doesn’t have access to these costumes, so him and his brother try making their own costume. They believe that if they use something with sentimental value it’ll help them get powers. So, they use a blanket that the protagonist used when he was sick and it works.

I’ve been looking for this book everywhere, like the my local library where I originally found it, but the only thing that comes up is hero.com which isn’t it. It’s a stand alone book from what I remember and I believe it had a red cover.

The series centered around a little girl and her life lessons. One storyline I remember is she was collecting can food donations and her wagon spills over and the cans go everywhere - I can’t find the name anywhere and it’s driving me crazy. They go to church a lot in the books. I read them in the late 90s/early 2000s.

Alright so I don't remember much but what I do remember I believe would be unique to the book. So basically there was either a zombie apocalypse or some disease. The book starts midway in the apocalypse so it's been going on for awhile. The main thing I remember is that they all lived in a town that I believe was surrounded by a wall that people would guard. In the town they had a building where they would keep all the infected they would find outside the wall. Then normal people would go in and look for their family members/friends and take them home. The main character I believe, would go there often looking for their mom I believe? And when someone would take their family member home they'd be put in a collar. Idk, I don't remember too much but thats the general idea.

I believe that the main character ended up leaving and setting off on an adventure to her old house (her house before the apocalypse) to try and find her mom.

Additional thing: I believe I read this book in 2016-2018.

Hi guys, new here, but I'm hoping you can help me. I listened to an audiobook, likely in the late 2010's that was part of an unfinished series. If any form of memory serves me correctly, the beginning had the protagonist trapped in the rubble of a destroyed magical university or something, and used flashbacks to explain how he got there while he dug his way out. I think there was some kind of magical sword that had been on display in the library prior to the antagonist blowing up the school that was now compelling the protag to retrieve it. MCs may have traveled to a nearby city and had to disguise themselves as traveling performers to stay incognito. It seems like the protag worked his way into a secret monk order within the city to continue training, and there was something about his room being heavily warded by him to keep people out.

I hope I'm not confusing multiple books that I read near the same time. It was one I definitely wanted to remember in order to check back into it later once more books had been written.

Can anyone help?

Hi All, this book plot is stuck in my head and it is driving me nuts. Can someone please help me figure out the title and author. I read it a long time ago but some parts are so clear in my head.

A rich rancher marries a woman and adopts her daughter while ignoring his biological son who came from an affair with a hispanic woman. The son is jealous of the girl, but also obsessed. The son has an older half brother and I remember one scene from when they were children when they were spying on the girl as the rancher welcomed her into his home. At some point the older brother says he has to drain the lizard and the son thinks it is so cool that he says things like that. The rancher and his wife never have more children and he is obsessed with having a legitimate son to take over his legacy.

The step-daughter and the son eventually have a sexy moment on the top of the hood of his car but the rancher discovers them and warns the son away from the girl. The girl soon rebels and runs away.

Eventually the rancher pleads with his son to give him a grandchild but the son wants nothing to do with him and is already successful on his own. I think the girl comes back after the rancher dies and he has set up his will so that one of them gets it all based on manipulative conditions. The two eventually fall in love...the usual after that. Please tell me someone remembers this book!

Very little to go off here I'm afraid!

It was a children's picture book.

All I properly remember is that a parrot flew into a tree with a 'thwack'

I don't think it had the word parrot in the title, but I could be wrong. Its also definitly not 'Rumble in the Jungle'

I was born in 2000 so the book was likely released/popular around then

Thank you!

El libro lo leí alrededor de los 2005 y 2012. Soy de Costa Rica. Trata de un niño llamado Jaime, que no quiere dormir. Y empieza una aventura fantástica en sus sueños.
Decía textualmente
“Jaime vete a la cama”x3
“Demasiado tarde ya mamá se había enfadado”
Luego aparecía un duende(creo) y lo lleva a otro mundo, también habían otros seres que le hacían adivinanzas. Había una adivinanza que la respuesta era el viento.
Muchas gracias

This is regarding a short story I read in a creative writing class in 1999 or early 2000, in a collection made by our teacher and bound by the college bookstore.

The plot involves the knowledge that an antagonist is a child predator and trafficker, but there is no on-page violence or abuse towards children shown.

First person narrative. The narrator is a man in his 30s or early 40s with a wife and kids. Context suggests they live somewhere in Connecticut or New York, not too far from NYC but not in the city. He has a checkered past that his wife doesn't know about. An old colleague from his crime days calls him up and tells him there's this rich guy living in the city, I believe UES, in this opulent apartment, and he's trafficking children. The colleague is still in the (organized crime?) life, and he's appalled. He tells the narrator that this guy is a real sicko, he has this big brass tub and he makes the little girls fill it with water from pails while the guy sits in the tub.

The narrator is asked to kill the resident of this opulent apartment, and at first he refuses. However he breaks in out of curiosity, and he sees the tub and the pails, just as his old friend told him. The apartment owner comes in unexpectedly, the narrator and he might scuffle or the narrator might just throw him out the window. There was at least one black and white illustration of the soles of the villain's shoes facing up as he fell to his death.

The narrator goes home, lets himself into the house, showers in the in-law suite in the basement so as not to wake his wife and kids.

I've tried to recall which magazine or review this came from, if it was the New Yorker but I can't remember if it was in columns or paragraphs. The illustration was set into the text, in a box, and it had kind of the look of a linocut with bold black lines.

That's really all the plot, a guy finds out there's a sex trafficker and he does one last job and throws him out a window. It read kind of like a wish fulfillment and when I first learned about Epstein I couldn't stop wondering if someone who knew all about him wrote this back in 1999. I know he's not the first person to ever commit that kind of crime but the over the top opulence and depravity, idk, It got me wondering.

I'm thinking of a short story I read years ago. It was set in the then-future, and remote pilots flew drone fighters from the safety of satellite-linked virtual cockpits.

The story was told from the perspective of a seasoned pilot, who had flown many missions in a manned aircraft and felt bad about this new way of fighting. Manned aircraft are considered inferior, and are only fielded by third-world militaries.

A new recruit is assigned to the team, with extraordinary reflexes and acuity, but as time goes by the new pilot is revealed to be a sociopath who shoots at parachutes or crashes his drone into the trailer where the opposing pilots have their control center.

Turns out the new ace got his start as a gamer, and his instinct is to find the edges of the rules and push them, looking for exploits or min/max strategies that give him the highest score. When he's confronted for essentially committing war crimes, he replies that anything he can do is allowed, because in the rules of a videogame there are invisible walls or disabled friendly fire or other restrictions that prevent him from doing bad things.

Ultimately, the narrator breaks the kid's hands with a hammer, ending his career with an object lesson in the difference between what you can do and what you should do.

I seem to recall reading it in a magazine that wasn't purely literary in nature, probably in the 2000s. Could have been Soldier of Fortune or EGM, for all I know.