The Vine: May 28, 2010
Hi Sars!
I have a mystery book and I haven’t been able to Google it. The main character is a teen girl — her mother is remarried, and her new stepfather has a son from a prior marriage and is involved in a custody battle with his ex-wife. One line I remember is during the custody hearing when an attorney says, “Isn’t it a little too cramped at the Krampners?” You think that would be enough for me to find it, but no luck.
Other things I remember: she makes a vest out of soda tabs, and somehow turns this into a charity/fund-raising thing. And she thought Piccadilly Circus was a real circus.
Thanks for the help — I keep thinking about this story!
I think she also makes a ponytail holder from a gum wrapper and a paper clip
*****
Dear Sars and Tomatonationeers —
I’m looking for a book that I read about fifteen years ago. I have done a keyword search on Amazon, poked around on Fantastic Fiction, entered it on a book search list on Goodreads and, of course, Googled it. I think it was fairly new when I read it, so it would have been published in the early-to-mid-’90s.
I believe it was written by a woman, and I remember it having a Dave McKean-ish cover featuring a pale girl with long, dark hair (although I may be wrong on both these points). What I do remember definitely is as follows: It was a young adult novel, loosely based on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, set in London in the early ’60s. It was concerned with a band kind of like the Beatles, if Stuart Sutcliffe had lived and steered them to the dark side.
This band, aside from being heavily into sex and drugs, seemed to be involved in some kind of occult business, though I think that was never stated outright. The protagonist was one of their groupies, a teenaged girl they kept trapped in their flat and used as their maid/plaything. At the end she had some kind of weird metaphysical stand-off with the lead singer. It was very much like something written by Tanith Lee or Elizabeth Hand, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t written by either of those authors. Sadly, I don’t have a clue what the title was; if I did, I probably would have found it by now.
Anyway, if anybody can tell me what this book is, I would be eternally grateful.
Looking For My Bad, Bad Beatles
*****
Hi Sars,
I was directed to you with this question for your Vine Army.
I read a book in grade school that I am trying hard to remember the name of. I think it was about little tiny people that lived among plants outside, and they got dug up and taken and put in a jar by some school kids and almost died when they fertilized them or watered them, and I think they may have been chased by a bug or something. I don’t think the classroom children knew they were in there.
I know it sounds strange, but I wondered if by any small chance, someone here may have read a book like that? I think it’s from the ’80s. It’s not Honey I Shrunk the Kids, either.
Shannon
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult the Beatles
I believe the first one is Happily Ever After…Almost by Judie Wolkoff. Two families named Birdsall and Krampner turn into one big family when the parents get married.
Could the last one be either The Littles or The Borrowers? I don’t remember all the stories, but I used to love The Littles as a kid.
I don’t know what the second one is but I would really like to read it!
Thank you for the suggestion, Anlyn! It isn’t either of those, unfortunately. :)
Bad Beatles,
Do you remember if it was part of a series? I remember a similar story that was part of a collection of short horror novels that I read in high school. Each book was different, but they all had a similar cover design. I remember there being a band that sold their soals to the “devil” in order to become famous, a young girl who wanted to be a witch, and another girl that had to do something supernatural-like at a museum or she would die on her next birthday. I think there was an egyptian theme to one of them? There were at least 10 of them.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the series or any of the books. But if that sounds familiar, maybe the additional information will help jog someone else’s memory.
Now I have to find them!
An aside: I haven’t read the Snow White book, but if you’re interested in similiar stories, in the 1990s there was a series of retold fairy tales put out by Terri Windling.
One of my favourites was Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose, a Sleeping Beauty story set during the Holocaust (Sleeping Beauty in this case was put to “sleep” by the gasses in a concentration camp, but survived).
There were two Snow White books in the series but I don’t think either was yours. One of them was written by Tanith Lee (White as Snow), though, so if you like her work you may want to check it out!
Is Happily Ever AFter … Almost the book where the protagonist hides Ho-Hos from her new stepbrother in a box in her closet marked “Old Underwear for Goodwill”? And possibly also the book where the mother snaps, “Mrs. Brady had Alice!” when the kids made a mess?
If so – I loved that book and have been wondering about it for years.
Oh yeah – the soda tabs vest – totally! I thought that sounded like an AWESOME idea.
Could the second one be Tanith Lee’s Red As Blood? I’ve never read it but the cover looks right. Though you did say you didn’t think it was Tanith Lee…
The second one makes me think of War for the Oaks by Emma Bull, but it doesn’t quite fit… Oh well. If it’s not the right book, it’s a similar theme, and maybe you’ll like it anyway?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_for_the_Oaks
The second one’s definitely NOT Red as Blood. I own that one and have read it several times. Highly recommend it, though!
Any chance the Snow White book is Adele Geras’ _Pictures of the Night_? It’s a YA Snow White retelling that definitely involves a band; the protagonist is named Bella, I believe, and the description on Amazon sounds right.
Fiona! That is it!! I just requested it from the library. Now I have to know…..did you use jedi google tricks or did you just know it? And if you googled what search terms found it?
CaradB: I was beginning to think I dreamed the book. I am glad to know someone else enjoyed it like I did. I must have read it 12 or 15 times as a kid.
The second one makes me think of Mercedes Lackey’s Children of the Night. Enough is different (it’s in New York in the 70s, for one) that I don’t think it’s the right book, but it’s what came to mind.
http://www.mercedeslackey.com/books/diana2.html
Thanks so for the guesses so far, everybody. It is definitely not War for the Oaks or either of the Lee books (I’ve read White As Snow, and I know I /haven’t/ read Red As Blood ’cause it’s still on my to-read list).
@ Renee: None of those other premises sound familiar, and as far as I know it wasn’t part of a series.
@ Amalthea: My favorite is Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin. ^__^ And I haven’t read the Yolen, but I think I’ll check it out.
Shannon – are you totally sure it was little people, and not the bugs themselves that were the protagonists? Something in your description reminded me of “How Does Your Garden Grow” by Pat Patterson, which I read as a kid, which is about a little girl called Gaily building a garden as seen from the perspective of the bugs that live in it. The cover is here: http://schultzsllc.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19_20&products_id=672&zenid=d2p5pnf3s70a5bgcrm1b8hsbl4
How about checking out the works of Francesca Lia Block for the second one? I know her covers tend to be very McKean-y and she’s written some very dark fairy tale retellings.
To Not-Beetle: Re the Snow White book … I think it’s Pictures of the Night, by Adele Geras. You can see a picture of a cover at the link below (along with a lot of other books based on Snow White.)
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sevendwarfs/themes.html
@Jane: The cover looks right, the publication date seems right, and the conflict with the stepmother–now that I think about it–seems right. I don’t remember anything about a Prince Charming (I really do remember there being evil boys in it, but maybe my cranky adolescent-girl brain just made that up) but otherwise this seems like it may be it. Nice! (So Renee was right and it was part of a series. Ah, my fallible human memory.) Thanks again to everybody who made suggestions, and if anybody has a similar book they haven’t posted about, books in this vein are kind of my thing anyway, so why not post it? ^__^
Nik-It was my google-fu, actually. I didn’t find much but what I did find seemed to match up with what you said! (I just used “Krampners” as the search term and went from there.) Because of that, Cara, I don’t really have the answer to your questions, but Nik might.
For Bad Beatles, as a follow-up to Meri’s comment, the description also initially reminded me of a Mercedes Lackey book, though not a specific one. I feel like I read several of her books that intersected music with the occult. She also wrote many with co-authors which made several of them “feel” different than her solo works.
Blank, thanks for your reply! It was definitely little people, though. Like really, really small, bug-sized people. But thank you for helping! :)