The Vine: June 5, 2009
…Bookfest!
Dear Sars,
I’m looking for a book I read as a kid or perhaps a teenager. It was about a boy who ran away from home and took up residence in an abandoned train station. I only remember he had a sleeping bag under the ticket counter and there might have been an older man involved that knew where he hid out and tried to help convince him to go home.
Given my upbringing, the book might have had a Christian bent but I don’t remember for sure. I know it’s not much to go on, but I hope maybe the loyal Vine following can help me figure out what it was.
Bookworm
*****
Hi Sars,
I’m looking for a book that I read about 10 years ago.It is a children’s/YA book and I can only remember certain very strange details.Google has not yet come through for me.
What I can remember is the story being based around a character (possibly a girl) and maybe a friend (possibly a boy).The girl moves into a house with relatives and finds a locked cabinet in her room.I believe there is a box under her bed that lost items end up in, and this might be how she finds the key to the cabinet.
The cabinet has a few items inside that she discovers have magical powers.The only one I can recall is a pair of shoes or boots that the girl puts on so she can walk over far distances in seconds.I think she goes to some remote town or country in them and makes straw hats.Actually, now that I think about it, there may have been a pair of gloves that help her do this quickly.
Thanks for any help you can give. The more I try to search for it and fail, the more I just really want to know how it ends.
Becca
*****
I read a science fiction book in elementary school (early ’80s) and then they showed us the poorly filmed movie version in class.I remember it vividly, but no one else I talk to can remember anything like it.
The book is set on the planet Venus, because Earth has gotten too crowded for further human population.On Venus, it rains every day of the year, except for one day every seven years, when the sun comes out for only an hour.So all the first-grade kids born on Venus are gearing up for the big day in school.They are getting their sun kits with sunscreen, sunglasses, visors, etc., taking their daily dose of Vitamin D through the tanning-bed like devices, and talking about how it’s a myth and the sun won’t really come out.
One little girl was born on Earth, and remembers the sun from when she was three years old, before her family moved to Venus.She builds a little diorama in a shoe box of a sunny meadow, with a cow grazing and flowers blooming.One mean little boy says she’s lying and locks her in a closet and destroys her diorama.
The noon hour approaches, and all the kids go outside and play in the sun and run in the grass and pick flowers and are amazed.The poor little girl is still locked in the closet, and the movie/story ends with the class coming back inside, and the teacher finding the sad little girl, alone in the closet, having missed the septennial (?) sunshine.
Can ANYONE out there remember this book and let me know the title?
Thanks, this has been driving me crazy for years!
Compelled to find this book from my past
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
Well, the last one about the little girl on Venus is from a book of short stories by Ray Bradbury. I can’t remember the title of the book, but that story is called “All Summer in a Day”
I don’t have the title, but I could swear the third book was a Vine question before. Will do some sleuthing to see if I can find the title because it sounds familiar.
OOH! OOH! Letter number 3 is a short story called “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury. I loved that story, but all I remember of the movie is the kids having to be “sunlamped” to stay healthy. This the reason why, when we get the random week of non-stop rain in Indiana I still say it’s “like living on Venus” and… everybody looks at me weird. Because I’m a dork.
The last one is “All Summer in a Day.” It’s a Ray Bradbury short story, and it was also made into a short movie in the 80s. You can see it on YouTube!
3 is All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury. For some reason, this story seems to come up every few weeks in various “what was that book?” forums. I guess it stuck in a lot of people’s memories.
I’m pretty sure Ask the AV Club has covered the Venus one. And since like 50% of all Ask the AV Clubs end up being Vonnegut-related, I’m going to suggest something having to do with Kurt Vonnegut.
@Compelled That’s the short story “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury, which I’ve only found in high school literature anthologies and Bradbury’s collection A Medicine for Melancholy, which I had to buy at a used bookstore.
Strange that no one you talk to remembers the story, because that’s the only story of Ray Bradbury’s people I talk to seem to know–everyone seems to have read it in eighth grade or so.
The last one about the girl missing the one hour of sun is “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury. It’s a short story and according to the wiki entry it was adapted into 30 minute episode on the PBS children’s series “Wonderworks” in 1982.
I never saw the show (I was in high school at the time), but I had read the story. I knew it had to be one of the big three (Asimov, Bradbury and Clarke) in Science fiction and I went from there.
@Compelled — I remember that film, too! I still think about it every once in a while, feeling so sad for the girl who missed out. I recall (I think) that she did get to see a bar of sunlight from a window that was really high up… Anyway, it’s called “All Summer in a Day” and I think the original author is Ray Bradbury.
Hi Compelled,
I think that’s All Summer In a Day, a short story by Ray Bradbury.
And Becca, maybe What the Witch Left by Ruth Chew?
So many Bradbury fans! (That story broke my heart.)
I remember that movie about the girl locked in the closet…..it was great!! Someone else posted the title and author. Now I am excited to read it since I am a huge Ray Bradbury fan!
The first one sounds like it might be Slake’s Limbo, by Felice Holman.
Hi Becca,
Maybe it’s “Howl’s Moving Castle” by Diana Wynne Jones? It’s a great, great book (made into an animated movie by Miyazki) which is about a girl named Sophie who makes hats and then runs away to a moving castle (see title). There she finds those seven-league boots that allow her to whoosh over great distances. It doesn’t exactly fit your description, but how many books are there about hat-making girls who find magical boots? Regardless, this is a great book, and books by Diana Wynne Jones were the only ones I considered stealing from the library back in the day.
The second is definitely “What the Witch Left” by Ruth Chew. The boots were 7 league boots that allowed her and her friend to walk to Mexico, where they wove baskets using the gloves which gave them mad skills with handicrafts.
Oh lord, I remember that second one. I remember that every step she takes sends her three leagues, so she’s able to walk several miles in just a few steps. Or maybe it’s one league, which is about three miles; I’m not sure which. And I vaguely remember the gloves. I can’t remember the name, though.
Unfortunately, Google isn’t helping. The best I’ve seen is the description below, but clicking the link doesn’t help. I think it’s an expired search.
“The one I clearly recall is the magic boots. When worn, each step takes the …. and Louise befriend when they walk to Mexico, wearing the Seven-League Boots ….. Front cover shows a little girl in a red coat and a straw hat with black …”
But I’m pretty positive the above description is what you’re looking for. Maybe it will help someone else come up with the actual name.
We read “All Summer in a Day” in fifth or sixth grade, and the teacher had us all write extended endings to it – what does the girl do when they let her out of the closet?
Most of the boys had her going on violent killing sprees. I believe that I had her stand up, give everyone a haunted stare, possibly vow revenge, and then walk silently out into the rain, having been driven completely mad by the experience. ‘Cause, you know, write what you know.
Heh, I recently went looking for this story myself. #3 is *definitely* Bradbury’s ‘All Summer in a Day’; the story is available here:
http://tinyurl.com/hdhqt
The film–which is a little different from the story–is also available on YouTube (it’s in 3 parts; here’s part one): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWmahMdeGU
This story broke my sensitive 5th grade heart, but ended up fueling my love of all things sci-fi (if you haven’t, check out more of Ray Bradbury’s short stories).
I second the “Slake’s Limbo” for the first one. I think about that book all the time, because the boy in the book had really bad eyesight and that resonated with me.
Also, he eats saltines and ketchup.
#1 sounds definitely like Slake’s Limbo.
Gee, thanks, guys. All the descriptions of ‘All Summer in a Day’ made me think of ‘The Cold Equations’, so I had to go read that again. Always a surefire cheer-up.
Ah yes, All Summer in a Day. That depressed the hell out of me in middle school or whenever it was I read it. That and The Lottery made for a couple of very interesting English classes.
That’s so weird–I was thinking about “Slake’s Limbo” the other day. I didn’t remember the title, but I remember reading it sometime in middle school. Living in a rural area at the time, the whole living-in-the-subway thing didn’t resonate with me, but I do remember that the librarian ordered tons of new copies of this book so that everybody could (a.k.a., was forced to) read it at the same time. That was exciting enough, because our school generally spent all of its money on sports equipment, not any of those high-falutin’ book doohickeys. But it was also awesome because we did a lot of in-class reading, so while my classmates groused and complained, I enjoyed my quiet reading time, hiding out in a corner of the middle school library. So much better than wedgies and dodgeball.
Aw, “Slake’s Limbo.” I remember that one. It does have some Christian allegorical aspects – I think the subway driver / older guy who helps Slake realizes that “he [driver] is the shepherd” at some point. *shrugs* I remember not quite understanding it.
Was “All Summer in a Day” also included in “The Illustrated Man”? That collection freaked me the f out; especially “Zero Hour” (with the kids, and their games, and the alien invasion.)
Is the second book possibly “Behind the Attic Wall”? I don’t remember many magical devices, but I do remember an orphan sent to live with her aunts, some animate dolls, and a fantasy world behind an enchanted door.
Oh, god, The Lottery. I hate that story. My senior high comp teacher made us read that and write a quick paper about it for our final. I was so pissed at the ending that I quickly wrote something just to get rid of it and get it out of my head. Apparently, I was the only one who nailed the interpretation (or the one my teacher liked, anyway) and got an A. I still hate that story.
Lisa, *thank you*. I knew as soon as I read the description that I knew the story, but I couldn’t find the name of it. I remember being disappointed in it, for some reason, but couldn’t tell you why.
@Suzanne
“All Summer in a Day” doesn’t seem to be in The Illustrated Man. I love that freaky anthology, though now whenever I see wall-to-wall big screen TVs in Best Buy I think of “The Veldt”.
#2 is definitely What the Witch Left. I did a search on this one myself a few years ago.
Holy crap, I love you people. I saw “All Summer in a Day” when I was younger, and it totally traumatized me, and I’ve been wondering what it was for a few years now. You guys rock.
“All Summer in a Day” is included in a couple of middle-school English textbooks (the kind with a selection of stories, each followed by a comprehension quiz and discussion questions) widely used in the ’80s, which is why so many remember reading it at that age, I think.
#2 is definitely NOT Behind the Attic Wall! I re-read that sucker every couple of years just to freak myself out, so I know it pretty well.
I am not the question-asker, but thank so much for unveiling the story that has haunted me for years. I remember the film, mainly the end where everyone sees the sun except the one girl (I think). And for most of my life, I have thought it was about Sweden or some other country that gets dark really early. I was starting to think I had made it up…
I am also putting in for #1 to be “Slake’s Limbo.” I still have my copy. Every time I think about donating it to the Friends of the Library for the book sale, I read it.
Becca- The story is “What the Witch Left” by Ruth Chew and was one of my favorites as well. Other articles included transparent gloves that turned you into a maestro at whatever you were doing- playing piano, making straw hats, etc. It’s out of print, but Amazon has copies from third-party vendors.
Dang! I was all excited when I read the first question because I thought I was the only kid on the planet who read “Slake’s Limbo.” I freaking LOVED that book, although I don’t recall any Christian themes. But I’m not a Christian, so maybe they just went over my head. : ) Seriously, I read that book so many times the binding fell apart.
/is off to Amazon to order Slake’s Limbo
@ EMMA
probably in the 90s, someone wrote, not exactly a follow-up but a different version of the Cold Equations.
As an engineer, i prefer the original, but the radical re-do ( think of it as a re-visualization) might do more to cheer you. That isn’t sarcasm.
Since i can’t find the title, email me and i will give you the short form i remember.
blanenicholas at yahoo dot com
Ha, apparently I was wrong and there IS more than one book about a hat-making girl with magical boots. I might have to check out the Ruth Chew book. She’s the one who wrote “The Wednesday Witch,” right? I used to love that book, and I can visualize the cover right now. Well, “Howl’s Moving Castle” is worth a read anyhow!
@Bev: You’re thinking of “Think Like a Dinosaur” by James Patrick Kelly.
“All Summer In a Day”! I KNEW that was a movie I saw once; I was almost convinced that I had imagined or dreamed seeing it as a child. It broke my heart and made me cry and rage as only a soft-hearted, indignant child can rage at stone-cold, hateful other children. Now I have to go read the original story.
Thank all of you for validating my childhood memories!
#1 could be “What the Deaf Mute Heard” – although the boy was abandoned in a bus station, rather than a train station. He was helped by the station master and lived there for several decades. The rest of the details fit. If its not the one you’re looking for, its still fascinating! :)
Heh — I didn’t read “What the Witch Left,” but based on the elements given I could totally tell it was a Ruth Chew book. I loved her when I was younger and am always looking for more.
I read Slake’s Limbo a thousand years ago, but that’s what jumped out at me for #1, so I’ll toss in another vote for it.
Seven league boots were also featured in “The Two Sisters of Bamarre” by Gail Carson Levine, although that’s the only part of the book I remember and I’m still surprised I remembered the title and author. Could be your book, maybe not.
Aw, geez, “All Summer In a Day”! Why why WHY would they make children go through such heartache? I literally lay awake at night after reading this story and just … silently RAGED at the injustice of it all.
Now I don’t believe in shielding children from every little negative thing … but I would have much preferred to go through elementary school without “All Summer In a Day”, “Watership Down”, and the original “Little Mermaid”.
I’m just sayin’.
I am now 34 years old. As I lie outside sick for the third day straight, unable to work, to do anything, I looked up at the sky. After a few minutes, a large group of clouds slowly exposed the bright beautiful sun, bathing me in its light and warmth. I recalled a movie, which it turns out that I must have seen when I was around 7 years old. The strange thing was, I remembered it being a boy locked away (must have identified with the character!) and almost 30 years later was filled with sadness at the memory. This was my first recollection since seeing the show. I never read the book. I searched the Internet and found this page, and am now watching it on youtube. Thank you so much everyone for this excellent post! It is amazing how many memories must be tucked away in our minds from childhood. The film affects me in a positive way, to treat others with kindness, and to appreciate something like sunshine, or the love of a spouse or child, something seemingly always around, and sometimes easy to take for granted.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ve looked for the name of the story (All Summer in a Day) for YEARS – like someone else said, I thought I might have made it up! That story is one that changed me…and I’m not sorry I read it at such a young age. Whew! Think about it all the time when we have long periods of rain…so glad to have found it.