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Ghostly Gypsy Girl at the Alhambra
"The book is for slightly older readers, maybe 10-11. It was about the Alhambra, with a tale about a ghostly gypsy girl finding treasure, and a Spanish princess with pearls in her har, and Moors and dust old knights. The illustrations (maybe three to a chapter) were done in a strange aquamarine green with black lines, giving it a ghostly quality. The cover was brown, with the title in a bright yellow block, framed by an orange red pattern, with the text in green. I had thought it was called "Nights in Spain," or something like that, but I can't be sure."
Solution: Castles in Spain, abridged from Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra, illustrated by Vincent Colabella. A Reading Shelf book, published by Garrard, 1971.
Poems for Very Young Children
"This is a picture book for very young chidren. I had thought it was called "I Can Fly," but I can't find it under that name. The text consisted of a poem a page, each one about four lines long and very simple. Each page had a different illustration: kids playing hide and seek on a leaf-covered hill, kids sitting on a rainbow connected to a tiny treehouse, a boy andhis mom with stars falling out of their pockets. They were all vividly illustrated, in bright, bright colors. I think the cover was a boy in the sky, riding a rocking horse. One of the poems used "Up, up, up" as one of its lines."
Solution: Come Play With Me, by Margaret Hillert. Modern Curriculum Press, 1975. The Dear Niece who sent in this request was able to find the book on her own and sent Aunt Book the information
Forest Ranger and Boy He Thinks Started a Fire
"I remember reading in grade school (we're talking early nineties) a book about a forest fire. It started off with a forest ranger, a gruff man who smokes, and this kid who shows up in the forest. A huge forest fire starts, and the Ranger spends the whole novel blaming the boy, thinking him a vandal and arsonist, even as he rescues him. I believe that one of the scenes involved the boy and the man in one of those little silver-reflective tents in a creek, while the fire passes right over them.
"Anyway, they survive, but at the end of the book, the boy reveals that it was the ranger who'd started the forest fire, because he was careless when he put out a cigarette - it blew out from under the bare (protected?) area under a lookout tower, and right into the dry grasses.
"I am dying to find out the name of this novel, as it affected me oddly - not much of an ecologically-minded person even now, and less interested in moralizing, but something about the Ranger's reaction to the twist ending really affected me."
Solution: Fire Storm, by Robb White. Doubleday, 1979.
Survivors of a Nuclear Holocaust
"This was a young adults' book about the survivors of a nuclear holocaust. It was split into three parts; the first set during the , the second set in a bunker, and the third set in the desert after the attack. The character from the second part meets one of the characters from the first part, who is now grown up. It was great and had the people in the bunker slowly dying, while the people out in the wasteland were evolving to survive their new world. The little girl from the first part survived by drinking only bottled water rather than the rain water her sisters drank. She survived to become a mysterious old lady later on."
Solution: Children of the Dust, by Louise Lawrence. 1985.
Rocket Ship to Twin Planet
"What was the book where the kids build a rocket ship (along with their alien neighbor) and fly to the earth's invisible twin planet? They end up taking along a chicken named Mrs. Something who provides the sulfur (through her eggs) that the people on the planet need to survive. I think the planet was called Thallo or something similar."
Solution: The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (1954), by Eleanor Cameron. Other books about the Mushroom Planet are Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet (1956), Mr. Bass's Planetoid (1958), A Mystery for Mr. Bass (1960), and Time and Mr. Bass (1967).