The Vine: Find That Book Fest II
Dear Sars,
I always thought that my first letter to you would contain at least a LITTLE drama or ethical dilemna, but here we have it.
I remember reading a wonderful book when I was around 10 years old (so, about 25 years ago) that was about a young girl who moved into a really big, really old house with her folks in the midwest(?). I want to say it was the fifties or sixties. The home is equipped with an old-fashioned intercom system. She spent a lot of her time riding her bike around with her friend — a young boy. At one point, they stumble across an old abandonned farm house where they find an old fan with an ivory handle. That is about all that I remember.
I had always thought that it was the Katie John series — I did read those, too, and have found copies of three of them through Alibris, but none of them match up to my memory of happenings.
If any of this rings a bell with you, I would greatly appreciate your help in locating which book it is. If not, sorry to have taken up your time and I hope that you don’t get fifty of these sorts of e-mails a day.
Needle in a bookshelf filled with hay covered in cobwebs
Dear Need,
I’m never any help with these. I swear, it’s like the only books I remember reading as a kid were The Secret Garden, The Girl With The Silver Eyes, and the one where the narrator’s friend gets stung by a bee and dies, and nobody ever asks about those.
But the readers, they know all. Let’s see what they’ve got this time.
(The boy who died in the bee-sting book was named Jamie, I think. Anyone?)
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
From your description this is the first book in the Katie John series, which I loved (something about the name, I guess!). Here’s the link to Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Katie-John-Mary-Calhoun/dp/0060209518/ref=pd_sim_b_2/104-5267720-3904714
I remember the story exactly the same way that you describe it, so I think this is the one.
Dunno about Need’s mystery book, but I think the bee-sting book was ‘A Taste of Blackberries’ by Doris Buchannan Smith:
http://www.amazon.com/Taste-Blackberries-M-Books/dp/0333462246
I believe the book with the bee sting was My Girl, was it not?
Sars, the book about Jamie is called A Taste of Blackberries:
http://www.amazon.com/Taste-Blackberries-Doris-Buchanan-Smith/dp/006440238X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0845547-5344163?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190997199&sr=8-1
It’s really strange that you mention it, because I just read it a month or so ago.
The bee sting book I remember from fourth grade. I remember it being called “Blackberry Winter,” which only stuck with me because the novel my mother was writing at the time had the same title. I read it right around the same time that My Girl came out, and so spent the next several years petrified of bees.
Yeah, apparently My Girl was never a book. :) But I remember that book too, vaguely.
“A Taste of Blackberries,” YES.
I don’t know if anyone else’s school did this, but at my school, the Scholastic catalog would get passed around, and you could ask your parents to fill out the order form. My parents were not super-keen on buying children’s/YA books that weren’t classics, since I’d read them in an hour and that would be that (see also: the family’s ongoing reluctance to buy my dad hardcover anything), but ToB was the first one my mother consented to spring for, and when she found out what it was about she was really not happy.
I mean, like “The Little Princess,” which I owned, was any less depressing.
My parents were the opposite end of the spectrum. We lived in a small town and when I had read all the YA books by the time I was 10, they said, “Here, read this Stephen King book!” I was through most of his catalogue, as well as the books by that creepy lady who wrote the “Flowers in the Attic” series by the time I was 12. My mom just told me to skip over the parts that were inappropriate.
Oh god, the Book Order…every month we’d get a 2-pg flyer (in color, but on REALLY THIN paper–why was that??) and the left column of the back page was a tear-off order form. I remember sticker books, and juvy fiction like Sars mentions, and Guiness World Record books each year; I always wanted, like, 10 things each month. I miss Book Order. Maybe TN should have one.
Oh my god, the book orders. By the time I was in grade school the “catalog” was a flimsy piece of thin paper. Mom usually set a ten-dollar limit, so I’d try to figure out how many books I could buy. I got the most random stuff through that thing – the one that springs to mind was a book that may have been called “Time Windows”, about a girl whose family moves to a house that’s haunted. There’s a dollhouse that’s made to look like the house itself in the attic, and the girl can SEE INTO THE PAST by looking through the dollhouse windows. Mmm, trashy.
Our school did the Scholastic thing, loved it. Speaking of “depressing” children’s books, our TEACHER read us Bridge to Terabitha in elementary school.
Kat: So did ours! And “A Separate Peace,” WTF? I got the feeling she didn’t like kids that much anyway, but now that I’m looking back…jeez.
She had a championship reading voice, though. She should have done books on tape for a living.
Lauren- Oh my God, VC Andrews! I read all of those creepy books as a late teen and into my twenties. It finally occured to me one day that ALL of those books featured bitter, damaged girls that plot revenge and end up miserable themselves. So depressing. And yay Book Order! My mom was so cool about letting me get new books, but then my family is full of serious readers. I’m sorry, what was the question again? Hee.
Scholastic is still around, y’all! Just sent in an order for my own kids, 5 and 7 years old. Didn’t it seem like if you skipped or missed an order, you were the only one in the WHOLE SCHOOL without new books to take home?
Lauren: My parents were more irritated at spending money on books I would power-read at the lunch table than at the content, so it was more that if I wanted to read about a kid dying, I should do it via the public library for free. They let me read Hemingway when I was ten.
I don’t think my mother knew what “My Sweet Audrina” was or she would have confiscated it. And taped my eyes shut ’til I was 18.
Pam, I totally hear you – I LOVED the book order, but my parents considered my reading habit a genuine risk of bankrupting the family (other people have drinking/drug/gambling habits, I read – past & present tense – like a fiend), so I was strictly limited to 2/order. And if there was a time when I just HAD to have something that put me over my limit, it was deducted from a future order. Since this happened frequently, there were months when I didn’t get a book & felt like the biggest loser on the planet. My mother was all, no sympathy for you, have you tried the library, there are a few books there you might not have read, and other such sarcastic “comfort” phrases. Most parents try to encourage their kids to read…
And Lauren – same. Plus encountering “Forever” at age 9-ish (it was Judy effin’ Blume, what was I supposed to think?) & getting “the talk” as an added bonus. Fun times.
Aw, I remember the book orders too. I was never allowed to order anything, except once my mom got me a book about the Holocaust. Nowadays, I still love the library, but I really love owning books too (unlike my parents). I think it was the deprivation as a child that did it.
It WAS sad to be the only kid without new, shiny books. Especially since I’m pretty sure I read at least 3x more than any of the other kids in my class.
@Lauren: My Girl was a book! I read it when I was nine!
…okay, the internet says I read a novelization by Patricia Hermes. Huh. That’s especially surprising to me, as I remember talking with my teacher about how it was so much more detailed than the movie and that’s why I enjoyed it. Well, 9-year-old Vaughns gives it two thumbs up.
And I never got the Scholastic books either, since the library was free. But I did read every Sweet Valley High and Baby Sitters’ Club book they had.
…I used to read a lot of dreck.
Ha! V.C. Andrews and Stephen King. I discovered these two authors when I was about eleven, and during the subsequent year or two my parents kind of hovered uncomfortably in my general vicinity, as though they half-expected me to microwave a cat or try to have sex with my sister.
Dean R. Koontz (yes, this was way back when he still had the “R.” printed on his book jackets) was another favourite.
I graduated to the adult horror genre pretty much straight out of my “Sweet Valley Twins/High” phase, via a short stretch of Lois Duncan and Christopher Pike books (which I tended to finish too quickly). I don’t know why I was specifically attracted to horror at a young age, rather than say, mysteries or romance novels. But I stuck with Stephen King religiously until I was old enough to properly appreciate authors like Margaret Atwood and John Irving.
I’d probably still read King’s books today, if any of his new releases ever caught my interest. But until the “Master of Horror” starts coming up with some fresh plotlines, I’ll be watching Buffy on DVD instead.
Man, I WISH my parents had pushed Stephen King at us. They were more of the “classics only” school. Which is good, since I have them to thank for reading “Heidi”, “Swiss Family Robinson” and anything by Louisa May Alcott. But still, “Last of the Mohicans”? Bleh.
It was sort of disappointing that neither my Mom or my Dad cared for the sci-fi/fantasy/horror I picked to read, although I remember my Dad calling L. Ron Hubbard a lunatic, which made me happy for some reason.
“Bridge to Terabithia”?. *shudder* Why do some authors like putting kids through that sort of thing?
Christopher Pike! I remember those books. My favourite one was called “Remember Me” – a girl is pushed over a balcony and dies, and then she has to figure out who killed her. That’s some great literature, right there!
I think KatieM is right – it’s the first in the Katie John series and I thought I was the only person EVER who read those books! There’s the intercom and the fan and doesn’t Katie John find an old photo of some woman? And she decides to call her “Netta” and makes up this whole backstory for her?
Whoa. My brain hangs on to way too much stuff.
Has anyone read the books by Scott Corbett (?) featuring Mrs. Graymalkin and a chemistry set and some other stuff? I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who has read those. …Checking Amazon – OMG they’re back in print.
This is totally why I had a kid.
For my 8th birthday, I got a couple books from a friend who probably picked them out by the covers. From the romance section.
The one time I ask my mother what a word means instead of using the dictionary, that word had to be “erotic.”
By 11 I had burned out on the Scholastic thing as well and graduated to Vonnegut, King, and VC Andrews as well. I later found out that one of my uncles was related to her and MAN was he screwed up. I have a feeling that she didn’t just have a really vivid imagination if that branch of the family is any indication.
I still reread my Vonnegut obsessively, but the rest has fallen by the wayside.
Man, I loooooved getting that flimsy Scholastic book catalog when I was a kid! I get the same feeling when I go into a bookstore now, except now that I’m spending my own money, I buy way more than I can read.
@Vaughns — if you think Babysitters Club was dreck, you should read the Gossip Girl or Clique Series. YA books today are all about Prada and Gucci…for ten year olds. It’s seriously appalling. Part of me feels like at least young girls are reading, but then I’m like, ugh, yet they’re reading about status seeking social climbers with expensive purses.
Oh man, Scholastic Book orders… At the tender age of ten, I was pulled aside in class and told I was the only person still getting books from the catalogue, and that they would not be sending in my order, due to it not being worth it. Such a sad day to receive back my check.
Of course, Scholastic also would come to my school for a week long book fair in June, so I think I somehow survived!
Lauren–hee hee! I can just see you telling your mom “But I HAD to read the brother sister rape incest scene to see if it was inappropriate!”
And the Scholastic Book Order–the highlight of the month. My parents never minded me getting books as long as I didn’t go too nuts, because I tend to reread stuff obsessively. That’s how I first read The Girl With The Silver Eyes.
Hijacking the thread a bit–does anyone remember reading a book about a boy who moves into an old house with his parents, and makes friends with the shadows (the literal shadows) of the family who used to live there? I can only remember that the garden had a statue of a woman, who was evil, and a dolphin fountain that was good. There was one scene where he eats lunch with the shadow family and they have the shadows of the food that they used to eat when they were alive. The boy takes a cake outside later so it can cast a shadow and the family can have shadow cake.
V.C. Andrews died a loooong time ago, and a lot of those books aren’t hers. I just like to tell people that because it seems like many people don’t know. I hate that ghostwriter. Grrr.
Christopher Pike is still writing and he’s still awesome. His “grown-up” books (I don’t want to say “adult,” because then my daughter says “adult” and it sounds like I surround her with porn or something) can be terrifyingly scary at times.
“Bridge to Terabithia” is the reason why I own a television set. If I *ever* have children, the last thing I want for them is to be outcast for something as stupid as not having a tv set. School/child politics are hard enough- sheesh!
My parents confiscated books by VC Andrews and King on the grounds that “we were far too young.” Still haven’t read any of them to this day.
My sister and I were such avid readers we would bring a sailbag t the library and leave with it full of books- each of us carrying one side of it.
Hee, the Scholastic books. My mom wasn’t super-keen on those, though we had our fair share of them. I distinctly remember a book about important women in American history. We also had book fairs a couple times a year, though, which were much better in terms of convincing her to buy us books. We were, however, strongly encouraged to avail ourselves of the town and school libraries (which were surprisingly awesome) especially in the summers. Of course, the minute I had any money of my own I spent it at the bookstore. This is still a problem for me, and Amazon is my shameless discount enabler.
Jen S., the book you’re thinking of is “The Shades” by Betty Brock.
As a kid, I loved, LOVED Scholastic book order time. I still go back and re-read “Jane-Emily” (by Patricia Clapp), ordered lo these many years ago from Scholastic. I wish they’d do something like that here at work…
Speaking of inappropriate – when I was – oh, I don’t know, 11 – I checked out a book from the library to take with me on vacation with my grandparents. The book was “The Life and Loves of a She-Devil” (later made into a pretty crappy movie).
Nobody knew what I was reading, but I remember feeling rather…uncomfortable reading it in their presence. Not that it stopped me.
My love of the Scholastic book orders has followed me into adulthood and has been passed on genetically to my son. We just got the first Scholastic catalog of his Kindergarten year and he and I spent SO much time pouring over it, pointing out what looked interesting, discussing why I was not going to buy him the Spiderman book, and then narrowing the extensive list of books down to a just two. And then, I had to order one for his little sister, as well. I’m such a sucker for books.
OMG A Taste of Blackberries. I loved that book. I always loved the ones with some sad.
And Remember Me was my favorite Christopher Pike as well. I’d reread it over and over again. I especially liked the whole “finding love after death” thing.
Ah, inappropriate reading. My mom did not believe in censorship of just about any kind, and as a result, I read The Exorcist when I was about 11 or 12. She figured if I was old enough to understand it, I was old enough to read it. Damn thing scared the crap out of me. This was around the time the movie came out, but THAT she wouldn’t let me see. When I saw it years later, I remember being disappointed, because the book painted a much more vivid picture in my mind than the movie managed to show me. I always loved Stephen King too, until he went ’round the folksy, lazy bend and quit writing interesting books.
another “should’ve checked the dictionary myself” story – Judy Blume’s “Then Again, Maybe I Won’t” – I think I had just turned 10, and my neighbor, who was about 15, gave me her copy to read. I had to ask my mother what it meant to “get hard” and she completely freaked out on the neighbors. :) I was a bit naive and overprotected, and then my neighbor didn’t want to hang out with me anymore. :( but she did explain the concept to me. :)
I loved The Girl with the Silver Eyes! Actually, I think I may have bought it through a Scholastic book order, oddly enough. We had three kids in my family so when we were all in elementary school we were allowed one book under 5.00 — anything else we had to pay for with our own money. Except for the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series — my mom loved those, so she’d order them off my form and allow me to pick my own.
So did the Scholastic orders in the last few years allow you to order Harry Potter books? Because that would have been awesome, although probably a nightmare for the poor teachers.
Wow, I totally remember “Time Windows”. That book gave me the creeps…I can’t believe someone else read it (and remembers it)
My MOM gave me the entire VC Andrews series when I was about 10. She had read them, and thought I’d like them. I also read Danielle Steele, Stephen King, and Dean Koonz when I was about that age.
I was also a big fan of this bizarre, b movie book called “Chains of Gold”. At least, I think that was the name of it. Kind of fantasy meets romance meets sci fi thriller about a woman who is married to a man she doesn’t know in some strange, primitive ceremony. It wasn’t really a kids book, I don’t think. Lots of sex and violence, if I remember correctly.
Oh, and don’t forget the Jean M. Auel series. Read those around that age, too. I may have been a little older for those, but not much.
On the flip side, I LOVED The Girl with the Silver Eyes, too, and I cried my eyes out at Bridge to Tarabithia (one of my favorites) and Where the Red Fern Grows. I read Romona and Judy Blume, too, but I never got Judy Blume. I guess that doesn’t shouldn’t surprise me, since that was after I read VC Andrews, Danielle Steele and Jean M. Auel. Kind of killed the innocence, there.
I also loved the Scholastic book buys, too. We didn’t have a lot of money, though, so I usually wasn’t able to get anything, but sometimes I was allowed a book or two, and that was the highlight of my month. They often had open book buys, too, where they’d bring in random books, and you could just buy them on the spot. I remember going through there on my lunch breaks and between classes and just smelling the books. Never had money to buy any, but I loved the smell of them.
I had no social life in middle and high school that wasn’t in books. Quite sad, really, now that I think about it.
Ok, my last post inspired me to go look up “Chains of Gold”, and it all came back… human sacrifice, sex, abandonment, death, and a visit to the afterlife… perfect topics for a 10 year old…
http://www.amazon.com/Chains-Gold-Nancy-Springer/dp/0877958300
That was one of my favorite books. I was a really strange child.
Christopher Pike! I was just thinking about Christopher Pike the other day. Oh man, I used to love his books when I was a teenager.
I also loved the Scholastic book orders. I was hardly ever allowed to buy anything from them (partly because I used to tear through books at an alarming rate), but I used to spend hours reading through it and rating the books I thought I’d like.
But then they’d have the big book sales! It was so so awesome.
Oh man, now I want to go to a bookstore.
Another good book for a beesting induced death cryfest is “Nobody’s Fault”. A girl’s brother dies~I’m pretty sure he’s attacked by bees while mowing the lawn~he either falls off the mower and gets run over or he dies from the stings~but she blames herself because sh was upstairs mucking about in hisroom, the onlyroom where she couldn’t have heard or seen him yell for help. Yeah~pretty heavy for a 4th grader. and I LOVED the Scholastic book fair~my mom let me read anything I could get myhands on. I remember my 7th grade language arts teacher calling a parent-teacher conference because we had to pick a book and make a “symbolism box”~literally, a box ful of symbolic items from the book to help explain it~and I chose One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, complete -with cat carrier, tic-tac “pills”, and a set of jumper cables. My teacher was a little worried…
Back to original question – it’s one of the Katie John books. Katie John and her friend find an abandoned farm and piece together the likely lives of its previous occupants. It might be called simply “Katie John.”
OMG, all this book-order talk is bringing back fond memories. And creepy memories, in the case of VC Andrews! I read the Auel books when I was really too young too, but hey, I learned a lot of prehistoric herbcraft!
The Girl With The Silver Eyes — awesomest book ever. I loved The Great Gilly Hopkins too.
I remember “Nobody’s Fault”! I was probably in 3rd when I read that and “And You Give Me A Pain, Elaine” both scarred me for awhile. Elaine was about a girl who’s sister is a rebellious teenager, she runs away, does drugs and basically tears the family apart. The girl hates her sister until the brother she loves is killed in a motorcycle accident. I took it out of the library a couple of years ago and it is very 1970’s dated – but I still cried. I also loved the “Witch Water” books – but only have a vague memory of them – one of the characters was named Mouse and they thought Mrs. Tuggle was a witch.
My mom would never let me order out of the scholastic catalog. So I was another reader of the VC Andrews’ series at a young age. And I read “Cujo” at 10 – then my mom just started letting me read her books. I read “The Deerhunter” during SSR (Silent Sustained Reading – which I adored) in middle school.
Man, book orders! Such fond memories. My parents (mom, really) spoiled me rotten, rotten, rotten with those things. I usually had twice as many books as everyone else. Hauling them home on the bus? Big pain! Of course, my mom also had to set limits on how many books I checked out of the library at one time… I suppose so it didn’t kill the bank if we didn’t get them in on time.
The Girl With The Silver Eyes was a book that my second grade teacher had on her shelf and I read and then had to sneak back into her classroom a few years later and hunt it down so I could refind it and read it again.
Amanda, I read “Nobody’s Fault” so many times when I was a kid. Yes, her brother is attacked and killed by bees when he accidentally runs the mower into the tree. I think the mower also runs over him. Right? I can’t remember. The main character goes into such depression over her brother’s death that she starts therapy. Way too heavy for a ten-year old, but I loved it. I recently found it at an old book store and got all weepy again. Oh, and how weird — this is the author who wrote the My Girl books.
I would pay money to remember the name of the YA book I read a long time ago about a kid who starts getting secret magic classes from a mysterious wizard-type teacher who gives him little puzzles to solve that unlock the secrets of magic. I remember there’s a cube like a rubik’s cube, and once he figures out how to slide all of the boxes, he knows how to fly or climb walls or something like that. I kept thinking the book was called “Christopher” or “Magic.”
Virgina Andrews wrote the Heaven series and Flowers in the Attic (I was in my first few years of girl guides when I read those)… Later series, which have VC Andrews as the author, were written by a ghostwriter.
I read my first RL Stein book, The Babysitter, when I was in 3rd grade… I thought I was ordering a Baby Sitters Club book from book club! whoops – still, it got me hooked on trashy teen horror!
Scholastic book clubs (Lucky, Arrow and Star were the 3 levels) are still running here in Australia
It’s definitely Katie John, but it’s the third book in the series, Honestly, Katie John!— http://www.amazon.com/Honestly-Katie-John-Mary-Calhoun/dp/0064400301/ref=sr_1_7/002-4284228-5620814?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191057523&sr=1-7
All four books were reissued back in the mid/late ’90s so of course I had to buy them. Too bad they seem to be out of print again.