The Vine: May 22, 2009
…Bookfest!
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Hi!
I asked a question on Ask Metafilter when it stumped people, one of your readers suggested I send a note to you.I’m looking for a book of short-story mysteries that I read sometime back in the early ’90s or even late ’80s:
One of the stories is where a character comes up a flight of stairs and thinks he sees something (a murder?) in someone’s apartment, but it’s actually some kind of mirrored reflection of a mirrored reflection of someone through a window across the street. The book/collection was published before 1996 and if I remember correctly, was all short-story mysteries of 5 to 20 pages.
In the story the guy was in his apartment, and there were two mirrors set up — so if you walked by, you saw the reflection of a reflection which was reflecting into another unit that may have been across the street. The person sees something in this setup, and when the police come the person is nowhere to be found (because they’re across the street). It was some other-level type stuff that nobody in their right mind would have conjured up the answer to. The book might have had a diagram explaining the setup, or I might have drawn that after being amazed at the answer.
Thank you for any help!
Cashman
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This is one of those “ask the readers to help me remember a book” queries. It’s a YA sci-fi novel that takes place at a boarding school of some sort. A group of children are chosen to go on an wilderness-type expedition with their teacher to another planet.
It becomes clear, though, that it’s not really an expedition, it’s a way for the powers that be to abandon/kill the group of kids. For some reason, the name that keeps coming to mind is The Bell Jar, which, obviously not that Bell Jar, but maybe something like that?
Sound familiar to anyone?
Margaret
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Sars,
Perhaps you and the peanuts can help me find a book I read once as a child, fell in lurve with, and now cannot find.
I read it in about 1988 or so, in junior high school.The main character was a young girl (perhaps pre-teen) named Jobie Halper (I think) and the story revolved around her having an unexplained pain in her leg (or perhaps a lingering pain after an accident) and discovering that the pain was caused by cancer.That’s really all I can remember about it.
I remember really enjoying the book, of course, but for some reason I can’t recall more details about it except that I loved the story and rejoiced at having found a book that showed me the true joy of reading.
I have Googled to no avail and sought out the counsel of friends and book store clerks, also to no avail.
Can you help?
Help me find Jobie, her name ends in -IE, like mine!
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
Margaret’s book sounds a little like Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky, but not quite. That one has the kids being teleported to another planet on purpose, for a wilderness survival test, but then Plot happens and they are not retrieved as soon as expected.
The book about “Jobie” might be by Lurlene McDaniel who has written a lot of books about young adults with cancer or other serious illnesses. I don’t remember that specific text, but it sounds a lot like the other books of McDaniel’s that I read in middle school. Good luck!
Could Margaret’s book be Invitation to the Game by Monica Hughes? YA sci-fi that starts in a boarding, and ends up on another planet as unknowing colonists. No teacher, though. They think they’re playing a VR game (and they are at first) but it turns out that they’re actually sent there, due to overpopulation on Earth and mass unemployment due to robots.
Even if it’s not the book, it’s still a fun read. A decade and a half after I first wrote a book report on it and it’s still good.
Margaret, that sounds a lot like the book “The Grounding of Group 6” by Julian F. Thompson. There is not an expedition to outer space but it’s about a group of kids whose rich parents want them killed because they are embarrassing to the family for various reasons. They go out on a wilderness expedition with a teacher from their “special boarding school”. They find out what the plot is and there is a lot of suspense involved while they try to get away and figure out what to do. I LOVE that book.
If you figure out what the space one is I’d love to read it! :)
I have no idea on any of them, but I’m excited that there’s a book character named Jobie, as that was my nickname as a kid (only I spelled it with a y), and I’ve never met anyone else with that name. Awesome.
It does sound a lot like a Lurlene McDaniel book, though. That’s kind of the default answer on any “teenage girl dying of an incurable disease” plot question.
That space boarding school one sounds like “But We Are Not of Earth,” by Jean E. Karl. There are two girls and two boys who have to navigate the spaceship with these special mind control helmets, and they end up with their teacher on a planet that’s been secretly colonized. Does that sound like it?
It’s long shot, but Margaret’s might be “No Traveller Returns” by James S. Wallerstein. A bunch of delinquents are sent to a special boarding school, and are then sent on a ridiculously complex mission underground to a different world (vaguely Journey to the Center of the Earth), culminating in a underground fight with evil and an above ground fight with the school administrators.
I believe I might actually have (how horrible!) the book about Jobie. I think it is almost positively Lurlene McDaniel. I’ll see if I can find it tonight, and if I can, post the title.
I immediately thought Lurlene McDaniel books as well – I looked it up and the only ones that came out around 1988 that seem likely are Too Young to Die and Goodbye Doesn’t Mean Forever, which are both about the friendship between a girl named Melissa Austin and her best friend, Jory Delaney. But in this case it’s Melissa that has cancer and is dying and Jory who is with her for the journey … not sure that’s it, but everything else by Lurlene was published too late.
It is “But We Are Not of Earth!” Awesome! Yay, Vine readers and Sars, thank you so much, that was driving me crazy. I had forgotten about the mind control helmets, but that totally brought it back for me.
Could the Jobie book be Circle of Hope: A Child Rescued by Love from a Medical Death Sentence, by Sharon Waller (Jobie’s mother)? I also read that one circa 1988 and have no idea why it appealed to me so much as a middle-schooler, but that name (short for JoBeth, I think?) has stuck in my head ever since.
I’d actually like to recommend Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky for anyone who has not yet read it; I thought it was pretty rockin’ when I first read it. As a matter of fact, I still do!
Oh my god, Lurlene McDaniel. I had never heard of these until I starting teaching high school last year, and our school library has, like, 20 of them. As far as I can tell, they’re all about dying teenagers and engineered for maximum tearjerk. Our librarian calls them “Grief Porn.”
I don’t have any guidance for these books, but just wanted to say how delighted I was to discover (via the answers) that the name “Lurlene” exists outside of that Simpsons episode.
The book Margret is asking for sounds familiar. I wonder if it’s the one ready in HS. Jobie came from a family of farmers, she gets shipped off to some type of cancer treatment center where she meets and falls in love with another patient. He kicks it and the end scene is of her walking through her families fields wearing the dead guys John Deere cap…I have no recollection of the title or Author, but I do remember loving that book.
OMG, grief porn!!
I also was going to suggest Too Young to Die and Goodbye Doesn’t Mean Forever; I remember crying like a fool over those books. Grief porn, indeed.
@Adrienne: OMG, “grief porn” made me laugh so loud I woke up my husband and 2 out of 3 cats!
Thanks to the posters who reminded me of “Invitation to the Game.” I loved that book. It made me want to take up running, even!
Public Service Announcement: Grief porn! This is not a term you want to learn while sitting in an airport terminal waiting to board the plane! The resulting attempt to stifle the laughter may cause snorting-type noises that may cause other passengers/airline staff to question your sanity.
“just wanted to say how delighted I was to discover (via the answers) that the name “Lurlene” exists outside of that Simpsons episode.”
Another occurrence of the name (if one vowel change can be allowed): Queen Lurline was the leader of the fairy band that first enchanted the Land of Oz. (This is part of the mythos of the Oz book series — the real Oz, not the movie one.)
The Jobie book sounds like Angels Watching Over Me, by Lurlene Mcdaniel of course, but the main character’s name was Leah, not Jobie. This one had Amish people in it as well and a sequel.
@Adrienne – “Grief porn” is so the absolute correct term for all the Lurlene McDaniel, etc., shit that I gorged myself on in middle school. LMAO, and blech!
@tulip – I also thought of The Grounding of Group Six, with the same caveat. Definitely not outer space, but everything else fits. That was such an awesome and creepy book at the time that I read it.
Here we call the “grief porn” novels “misery memoirs” – there’s even a section labelled that in book stores.
Grief porn is an excellent name for McDaniel’s signature style especially considering I almost always read them for whatever romantic dribble was in them and would somehow be consistently grief stricken when yet another main character with cancer wouldn’t make it to the end of the book. The one about the Amish girl was pretty awesome though.
@Morgan – I thought of that book too but I couldn’t remember the title! Now I can go reread it. I loved it as a kid :D
Margaret,
I’m chiming in that your book might be No Traveller Returns by James S. Wallerstein. I’m actually reading it right now, which is why I stumbled across your question. Hope that helps!
Just chiming in to say how happy I am that there were so many similar possibilities for Margaret’s sci-fi story, and that all of them sound great!
I’m almost positive that the book that Margaret is describing is No Traveller Returns, by James Wallerstein. It’s a really strange book that I think is labeled as a children’s book but certainly isn’t (there’s a lot of swearing and otherwise bizarre stuff). I’ve never been able to find anything else by the author.
@Jill- I know this is old, but this site http://tiny.cc/x93Pn tells me you’re right about the Jobie book- except it’s actually Jobi. (Sorry, original poster, her name doesn’t end in “ie” like yours!)