The Vine: May 7, 2010
Hi Sars,
Can you help me find this book that’s been driving me crazy? I probably read this book in the late eighties or mid nineties, and I think it was relatively new, as I owned it in hardcover (the actual book was blue with a reddish binding, I always removed my dust jackets back then).
The book is about a teenage girl whose sister joins a cult and has to be rescued. I think it starts out by having the younger sister come home and find that the room that she shares with her older sister has been divided in half by tape and all of her sister’s possessions are gone — brought to a pawn shop and sold to benefit the cult. So the younger sister joins the cult and rescues her sister.
Weirdly enough, the book is supposed to be funny (I don’t remember if it is or not). Googling endless combinations of books about cults and sisters doesn’t help. Bizarre details I can remember? The cult has dogs named Lucrezia and Borgia, and I think that the leader of the cult ends up driving off in a gold car with his wife.
For some reason, I associate the name Daniel Pinkwater with the author, but I have looked through ALL of Daniel Pinkwater’s books listed on Amazon and none of these match the description.
If someone could help me find this book or remembers it, I would really appreciate it.
Kathryn
*****
Hi Sarah and all TNers, hope you can help me with a find-a-YA-book question.
In elementary school — which would have been the mid-to-late ’70s — I was obsessed with hockey and read anything hockey-related I could get my mitts on (and so I can tell much more about Bobby Clarke than anyone who doesn’t come from Flin Flon or live in Philadelphia will reasonably need to know).
Among the hockey books was a YA fiction series about a kid in junior hockey. What little I recall about it:
- At least three titles in the series
- Hardcover; I don’t recall ever seeing a soft cover, but that simply could be the need to preserve the books against the destructiveness of elementary school kids
- I recall that the kid went through the NHL draft, maybe picked up by the Blues
- The series is not Charlie Joyce, Slapshots, Screech Owls, or other series by Matt Christopher, Roy MacGregor or Gordon Korman; these are from at latest 1979, but possibly the late 1960s or early 1970s.
Obvs, I’m in Canada and have always lived here, so this may be something better recalled by the Canucks in the Nation, but I make no assumptions; hockey fans are everywhere.
cayenne
*****
Hello!
I’m hoping a Vine reader out there will remember the name of a certain educational video game that I remember playing in school about 12 years ago.
I have tried plugging everything I can remember about it into Google and asking my friends but have gotten nowhere! I was a teacher’s aide in 8th grade to a 6th-grade teacher so this was not a game I played more than a couple times when she stepped out of the room.
What I can remember was the main character was a boy that gets stuck or lost in a museum after dark, and he ends up on some sort of mission and transports through time via the exhibits, picking up clues. I think it was U.S.-history-focused because I remember a step about putting together a map of the Louisiana Purchase and another about Ben Franklin’s kite. It was one of those games where you would pick out the clues and then had to figure out what to do with them before moving on, for example I seem to remember pressing candle wax into a mold to make a key.
I thought the game was really neat (even if I was a few years too old to be playing it) and I’d love to find it for my niece if anyone out there remembers playing this in school.
Wax-Key-Museum-Video-Game Googler
Tags: Ask The Readers Ben Franklin Bobby Clarke Daniel Pinkwater Gordon Korman Matt Christopher popcult Roy MacGregor
I think the hockey books might be the Scrubs on Skates books: Scrubs on Skates, Boy on Defence, A Boy in the Leafs Camp. Fantastic books. They’re written by Scott Young, who in addition to giving us those books also gave the world his son Neil.
I have never commented before but I finally recognized one… I think the first book is “The Disappearance of Sister Perfect”. It was written by Jill Pinkwater (not Daniel!)
Kathryn,
There’s a reason you’re thinking of Daniel Pinkwater: The book you’re looking for is The Disappearance of Sister Perfect by Jill Pinkwater (Daniel’s wife).
For Wax-Key-Museum, could you be thinking of Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?
Squeeee! My question! Thanks, Sars!
@Daniel – I forgot about those, but nope, the mystery books aren’t Scrubs, which are just a tad too late (but my brother loved them). By the time the first Scrubs book came out in 1985, I was in high school. This intense hockey obsession started around grade 3 (1977-8) & it ended at grade 6 in 1979-80, so the first publication date really can’t be later than 1979.
Oh my god! Thank you guys so much! It’s like an itch I’ve had for six years has been finally scratched, and I had always wondered if I was crazy with the Daniel Pinkwater reference–now I know I wasn’t! Of course it’s out of print, but I’m headed to Amazon to order a used copy. Thanks again, and thank you Sars!
The Scrubs books were originally published in the late ’50s-early ’60s, I believe, but if you’re aware of those, then I guess they’re not the ones you’re looking for. Damn! I thought I had one!
@Wax Key Museum, is the game Museum Madness? It came out in 1994, and sounds similar, at least.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_Madness_(computer_game)
I’m no help, but that Slap Shot picture is totally making my day.
Neil Young’s Da wrote hockey books? Awesome.
The game was called Museum Madness. Without a doubt. That was a favorite of mine, too…
I confirm the game being Museum Madness. I spent many hours with that as a kid.
I had totally forgotten about “The Disappearance of Sister Perfect”! As soon as I read the description I had a clear memory of reading it, minus the title. That’s really awesome!
To Cayenne: could it possibly be an different (earlier) series by Scott Young? He wrote a series called the “Face Off Series.” I found these three titles/descriptions:
“Learning To Be Captain” Billy, who is captain of his school’s hockey team, faces a morale dilemma when a new boy becomes famous by doing all the scoring.
“The Moscow Challenges”Billy determines to find out why Val sets himself apart from the other visiting Russian Hockey players.
“The Silent One Speaks Up” The quietest boy on the hockey team gets the idea to take the team to Russia.
These date from the early 70s.
There are some books by Leslie McFarlane (who was also one of the Hardy Boys ghostwriters) like “McGonigle Scores” but that didn’t seem like what you were looking for.
If it’s not Museum Madness, it may be Mario’s Time Machine, as it sounds very similar, just with, you know, Mario. I’m a Canadian, and I swear half my basic American history knowledge came from that game. If you can find it, I highly recommend it.
OT: Turns out that “eat a bee” is something that people actually did.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/opinion/08collins.html?ref=opinion
Museum Madness! That’s it! Looking at it online now, I can’t believe I had forgotten about the robot MICK! And it still looks like fun even if it doesn’t look so hot anymore! Time flies.
Thank you so much Tomato Nation!