The Vine: August 8, 2008
Hi Sars,
I’ve asked the blue-haired children’s librarian who’s been doing this for a hundred years.She doesn’t have anything for me.I’ve searched and scoured used bookstores.I’ve looked online, but I don’t really have much of anything to go on.I can’t find the book that I loved as a kid, and I’m hoping The Readers might be able to help?
It was a picture book for young kids (4-6?) about all the many types of houses that people live in all over the world.It included brightly-colored (think fuchsia and yellow and green, etc.) illustrations, simple and fun.Some of the types of abodes include adobe houses, treehouses, and homes in Venice where you traveled by gondola.It’s definitely a children’s book, thin, and vibrant.I read it when I was little, in the early ’70s, but my older siblings might have gotten it when they were young in the early to mid-sixties.
I feel like I don’t have a lot to go on, but I’d be glad to buy several books of this type before hitting on the one I have in mind, so all suggestions are welcome.I’ll recognize it when I see it, but I might not remember the title even if someone knows it.Or the author.
Is this a needle in a haystack Ask The Reader question?I’d be sooooo glad if The Vine readers could reunite me with my favorite children’s book.
There’s No Place Like Everyone Else’s Home
Dear Home,
I’m almost positive Mr. Stupidhead had a copy of that book, if the artwork was in the Very Hungry Caterpillar style but with color backgrounds instead of white ones.
Alas, that’s all I’ve got for you.Readers?Please try to include a link (and make sure it’s broken up or Tiny-URLed for formatting convenience — thanks).
I have a “lost book” question for your readers.
I have a memory of a childhood book — it might have been a series of books — that featured a girl named Cathy who lived in a huge brick house. The house had secret passages and old speaking tubes and a stair that opened up on a hinge, like a box. In one book a kid named Edwin gave her a satin heart Valentine and she went to school with baked potatoes stuffed in her snow suit to keep warm (something she learned from the stories her dad told her about the Great Depression, I think).
When she got older, I think she had a crush on Edwin and then she had an obsession with Wuthering Heights. Can anyone help me out?
Dear Keck,
I totally would have done that thing with the potatoes, so I don’t know if it’s sounds familiar because it’s something I would have copied from a Little House book myself, or because I read it also.Either way, I’m no help on the title.As usual.
Also, I’m going to put in a plug for Jezebel’s Fine Lines feature, which is books I know sometimes (they did Homecoming last week, and Dicey feeding them all on two bucks has never left my brain), and I think it’s coming out as a book soon, which is freakin’ awesome.
Anyway.Cathy and Edwin: readers?
This is one of those “lost obscure books of my youth” queries. I was in one of those Book of the Month clubs for young adults at the time (I’m 40 now, so this would have been mid- or late ’70s), and I got a chapter book about a teenager who starts hearing a voice in his head.
No, it wasn’t I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, har har. It was a sci-fi book about a boy who eventually believes what this voice claims, which is that it (the voice) is coming from a kind of teenaged-boy counterpart in a galaxy far, far away, and needs some kind of help. The far-away boy eventually teaches Earth Boy how to use telekinesis, which gets one or both of them out of a jam…my memory of this is even vaguer than I thought! The only other detail I remember is that one of the Earth Boy’s schoolmates is a kid named Robert E. Lee.
I’ve tried Googling combinations of the above, with predictable results. Plenty of telekinesis happens in young adult sci-fi, I can tell you, and the Robert E. Lee thing just takes me to Civil War stuff.
I don’t know why I can’t let this go, because I obviously didn’t keep it as a treasured book, but sign me —
Roberta E. Lee in Space
Dear You Know How We Love A Roberta ‘Round These Parts,
That one doesn’t sound familiar at all, but I didn’t read much sci-fi unless one of my teachers got a bug about making sure we read in different genres for book reports (and that didn’t end well, either).
Readers, hit it.Remember, bust up those links; thanks!
Tags: Ask The Readers kids popcult
“There’s No Place Like Home”, is THIS the book you want??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_over_to_My_House
I remember having this book myself, I wonder if my mom still has a copy…
Home, could the book be “Come Over to My House” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_over_to_My_House)? I LOVED that book as a child. I think it’s the whole reason I ended up joining the Peace Corps as an adult. And I’m still wanting to go sledding down a hill of pine needles some day…
Keck, that sounds like a Katie John book. The passage ways and potato thing sounds familiar. It was a series of books. However, I don’t remember the author. I enjoyed the books as well. Hopefully, someone has more info.
Home, maybe it’s Richard Scarry book?
Hey, how’d you get a picture of my office? :-)
I think Keckler is talking about the Katie John series by Mary Calhoun. The old house with speaking tubes and the potatos and the satin heart from Edwin all seem to fit. I think she went by Katie John and only asked to be called Cathy during her Wuthering Heights phase and she went back to Katie John by the end of the book.
If it is Come Over To My House, you’re in luck. Amazon resellers have 10 copies available. There’s no image on the main page if you search by title, but when you click on that title there’s a picture of the cover. It looks like a great book – I may grab one of those for my kids as well. And then there were 9…
It is indeed the Katie John books (it was a series) by Mary Calhoun. I loved them because she had my name and she was a tomboy. I think I still have my original copy at the cottage!
In case it’s not Come Over to My House, perhaps the children’s book is The Big Orange Splot? At any rate, that’s a great book featuring lots of outlandish houses.
Oh, I LOVE The Big Orange Splot! It’s always been my inspiration for choosing distinctive places to live. And I think I’m going to have to get a preemptive copy of Come Over to My House (you know, for when I eventually have kids — heh).
Roberta’s book sounds similar to Jean Karl’s Beloved Benjamin is Waiting. THe protagonist in that book is a girl who is bullied at school and starts hiding at this abandoned house where a statue (gravestone maybe?) starts talking to her. She thinks it’s a ghost at first and then discovers that he’s from outer space!
Roberta, is it “Chocky”, by John Wyndham?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocky
Robertaaaaa innnnn spaaaaace, the book you describe totally reminds me of “Dar Tellum,” a book I loved back in the day. I can still see the cover in my head. It was kind of about global warming & the melting of the ice caps?
The last one is Dar Tellum, a favorite of mine from my childhood. I was addicted to those Arrow and Tab bookclubs and I am also just over 40, so I feel sure this is the one Roberta is remembering.
Roberta, I’m seconding the suggestion of “Chocky” by John Wyndham. It was made into a (fairly dire) kids’ Tv series in the ’80s. I loved reading Wyndham’s stuff when I was about 10-12 years old. I can’t recommend The Chrysalids highly enough.
It IS the Katie John series! Bless you all.
Now I have to decide whether I want to dig them out of my parents’ basement back home or if I’m too impatient and will therefore Amazon them.
Totally no help with any of these, BUT had to comment that–YES! Sars! I too will never forget Dicey feeding everyone for $2 in Homecoming, either! I found a used copy of Homecoming a few months ago and picked it up immediately, remembering it with such fondness and also a little bit of melancholy.
Anyway. Yes. Homecoming. Awesome.
Oh my gosh, I totally remember Come Over to My House! Such a classic children’s book.
Looks like the mystery books are all solved by now, but I have to add to the love for Homecoming. And the sequel, Dicey’s Song, is even better. If all you Dicey fans haven’t read it yet, DO.
For one thing: she submits a Home Ec assignment proposing to feed four people for $2 and gets a failing grade. Hee.
@Robyn: THANK YOU! I remember seeing the movie version as a kid on HBO or Nickelodeon and it had been bugging me that I couldn’t remember it. I’d even written in to a few movie trivia columns with no success. All I could remember was that the Earth kid could suddenly understand binary code and that the alien was called “Chalk”. Now off to see if I can find the books and/or tv show on video.
It IS _Come Over To My House_! Oh, sledding down the hill of pine needles… Peace Corps Sarah, your comment gave me the warm fuzzies. I have been pining (pardon the pun) for this book for twenty-plus years. Sars, thank you SO much for publishing my question… I am totally pinching myself!
Now if you all could only help me locate the closest possible replica of the original mid-eighties Taco flavored Doritos (not the other flavors that Doritos has produced with Taco in the name, but the REAL original Taco flavor) then all of my pining away for childhood stuff issues will be satisfied. Tom’s Chips had a Taco chip that was as close as I’ve found, but they went out of production a couple of years ago. Sigh.
The Vine: It can make your dreams come true. You guys rock.
Anyway. Yes. Homecoming. Awesome.
Thirded. It’s weird looking back now seeing how dark some of the YA books I loved as a kid (…and, okay, I still totally adore good YA lit–Cynthia Voigt rules) were; I mean this is a book that OPENS with a mom abandoning her four prepubescent children in a car. But. Yeah. So, so good.
God, Homecoming and Dicey’s Song~great. Definitely agree with Isabel about the darkness of some of those YS books~I was bored by 9th summer and read through my older cousin’s library~pretty much the entire V.C. Andrews collection, Homecoming, and Dicey’s Song.
There was also some book about nukes going off~I think it was on accident, but other countries didn’t know it and retaliated, and a man and his son were able to go to a government shelter but the mother and sister had to stay behind and die, so the father gave them cyanide or something to take so they wouldn’t suffer…there was also a b-storyline about a man who was giving a tour of a bomb shelter to a group of women when the shit started, and they pretty much all went crazy and like, kept him as a sex slave…
Homecoming and Dicey’s Song, ftw! Also, Cynthia Voigt had a bunch of other stories that went along with those- Come a Stranger, Sons From Afar, The Runner, A Solitary Blue (the one I started with), and Seventeen Against the Dealer. Read them all in one rainy Saturday with chocolate. Oh, look, it’s a rainy Saturday!
Apparently Come Into My House is written by Theo. LeSieg, another pen name of Dr. Seuss! Pretty cool.
I’m pretty sure it must be Dar Tellum — thanks so much! I’m going to order it, at any rate. Thanks again to everyone…. By the way, Katie John books are great, as are the similar Betsy-Tacey books.
The book in question is “Children of Other Lands”
written by Watty Piper
illustrated by Lucille W. & H.C. Holling
published by The Platt & Munk Co., New York
firsted published in 1929
again in 1933 and 1943
i have a 1943
Keckler’s question and the subsequent answers sent 38-year-old me off looking for a copy of Katie John. The Corvallis Library had it, but none of the follow-ups. Amazon and the local used book stores were of little help. I read “Katie John,” and could not fathom why I hadn’t read it when I was a kid. It would’ve been exactly the kind of thing I’d have liked. :-)
Ah, I came here looking for a book and Roberta’s note brought me here via google. Then Theatro’s gave the answer! “Dar Tellum” is the one I’m looking for!
Thank you, thank you! :)