[captain_beefheart]

nah its set much earlier than that...like he's at uni in the 20s i think or 30s

[Sara_Forster]

I read this book a few years ago about a girl who lives with her dad and she likes horse riding..
[*]she meets a guy who has left home who is really clever but is working for her friend as a gardener/stable boy[*]he is staying in an abandoned house in the woods and makes clay sculptures[*]the girl doesn't like to be alone and he tries to help her as you find out that he had a sister like her who committed suicide.
the cover was of a guy standing in a lake with his back towards you

please help me i can't remember the title or author!!!

[Emma the Hippy]

Hey guys, I'm looking for a book I saw in Smiths a few months back. It's a fairly new release, I think, the cover was a similar style to Marian Keyes/Cecelia Ahern - type books, with a chicken on the bottom corner. I only skimmed over the back and a few pages, and the basic plot was a family (husband, wife, a couple of kids) move out of the city to start up "the good life" in the country side, mainly to live out the husbands dream. Wife is very reluctent. And then husband dies, and she's stuck trying to hold it all together.

It's so irritating, I can practically recite half of the back bit, but can't for the life of me remember the title or author. I didn't buy it at the time, and promised myself it would be an end-of-exam treat. Mainly because it had a chicken on the cover. Any ideas?

[thethinker]

I doubt that anyone will get this but I'm trying to remeember the name of a book I read in primary school. I was about a boy who meets a magician and learns how to walk across a tightrope. At the end of the novel I think he walks across the Niagra Falls (or another waterfall). Thanks!

[kiss_me_now9]

(Original post by thethinker)
I doubt that anyone will get this but I'm trying to remeember the name of a book I read in primary school. I was about a boy who meets a magician and learns how to walk across a tightrope. At the end of the novel I think he walks across the Niagra Falls (or another waterfall). Thanks!

I have definatly read that! I'll do some googling, see if I can find anything

[dancing.barefoot]

Can't remember the name of this book.. I think the first name of the author is John, but I might be entirely wrong.

It's set in WW2 (I think), and it's about a boy who gets hit by some sort of missile, but we don't actually find that out until near the end. The book is about what goes through the boy's mind after he is hit, and it's kind of a fantasy book.

Sorry that I can't be less vague

[atypicalsurreygirl]

Ok. It's a children's book, a family go to a seaside and buy an ornamental egg, only a couple of weeks later, the egg hatches and a big otter-type-thing comes out of it, and it grows to really really big.... i can't actually remember the rest of it, but i know i loved it in year three and i want to buy it for my nephew..

xxx

[hobnob]

(Original post by atypicalsurreygirl)
Ok. It's a children's book, a family go to a seaside and buy an ornamental egg, only a couple of weeks later, the egg hatches and a big otter-type-thing comes out of it, and it grows to really really big.... i can't actually remember the rest of it, but i know i loved it in year three and i want to buy it for my nephew..

xxx

That sounds a little like Henry Hollins and the Dinosaur by Willis Hall. The Hollinses don't buy the egg, though, Henry discovers it while playing on the cliffs. He thinks it's a fossil at first and hides it from his father (who doesn't really understand his son's obsession with palaeontology). When the dinosaur hatches, he tries to hide it as well, but for obvious reason that's even trickier than hiding an egg.

Memorable characters and scenes include:
- Henry's mother Emily is involved with just about every charity on the planet and constantly collecting, knitting or reusing something or other for the benefit of donkeys, orphans or people in developing countries.
- Henry's hometown of Stapleton has a very tenuous connection with Charles Dickens (he spent a night at the local inn once - and thought it was rubbish). Because of that, they have an annual Dickens festival, for which everybody has to dress up as a Dickens character. The dinosaur makes a complete mess out of it.
- Before the egg hatches, Henry is invited to a BBC talkshow to talk about his supposed fossil find. Other guests invited include an arrogant palaeontologist who insists that what Henry has found is just another rock and Mrs Murchison, who hasn't stopped sneezing for two weeks. Once the cameras are on her, though, the sneeze immediately disappears, and the BBC are forced to show stock footage of morris dancers instead.
- There is a scene in which the dinosaur frightens an American tourist, who is convinced that she has seen the Loch Ness monster. Her tour guide is unimpressed and lectures her on the differences between England and Scotland.

Does any of that ring a bell?

[SiaSiaSia]

brilliant thread! can't think of anymore but will come back, i usually have loads :P

[SiaSiaSia]

(Original post by darnbarn)
Can someone help me remember this childrens book? I must have read it years and years ago so I don't remember it now.

What I remember is this boy finds like some magic garden or something with a big house in it and at that place there are all 4 seasons in a day (or it might be a week). It is a really amazing place for a kid to be. Anyway when he leaves this place a few days later he goes home and his parents are older it it turns our he has been away for years. It is actually quite a sinister story but I really want to find it again.

The first bit reminds me of Tom's Midnight Garden, but it was that the people in the Garden got older, not the people in the house... so probably not? idk?

[atypicalsurreygirl]

(Original post by hobnob)
That sounds a little like Henry Hollins and the Dinosaur by Willis Hall. The Hollinses don't buy the egg, though, Henry discovers it while playing on the cliffs. He thinks it's a fossil at first and hides it from his father (who doesn't really understand his son's obsession with palaeontology). When the dinosaur hatches, he tries to hide it as well, but for obvious reason that's even trickier than hiding an egg.

Oh, thank you for the reply, but that's not it - I definitely read that one too. This creature was a sort of, silvery grey colour, and had black eyes and had the body shape of a seal (it may have even been a seal..) and they keep it in a bath, before it gets too big.. I just don't know!!

xx

[thethinker]

I still don't know what my book is.

[Natasharox]

(Original post by atypicalsurreygirl)
Ok. It's a children's book, a family go to a seaside and buy an ornamental egg, only a couple of weeks later, the egg hatches and a big otter-type-thing comes out of it, and it grows to really really big.... i can't actually remember the rest of it, but i know i loved it in year three and i want to buy it for my nephew..

xxx

My teacher read this to us in year 4, but I can't remember the name! I know what you mean though - I'll get googling.

[Cool Cat]

ok, there was a book that we had to read for GCSE Eng lit and it was about a family of black people living in fear of white supremacists in america in the early 1900's, I think? there was a young character called Wesley (or something similar) and one of the black people was tarred and feathered and eventually killed or something. EDIT: okay, I've remembered it's set in Wichita, kansas. More specifically- Shawnee county.

and there was another book that we read in 2nd year of high school, that I vaguely remember being about a young boy surviving a nuclear bomb and it described how he heard a loud noise and then saw a mushroom cloud and then he hid in a shelter and he said how everything was destroyed and he saw people checked the radiation levels with a geiger counter.


very, very vague descriptions but i thought it was worth a shot

[headunderwater]

(Original post by Cool Cat)
ok, there was a book that we had to read for GCSE Eng lit and it was about a family of black people living in fear of white supremacists in america in the early 1900's, I think? there was a young character called Wesley (or something similar) and one of the black people was tarred and feathered and eventually killed or something. EDIT: okay, I've remembered it's set in Wichita, kansas. More specifically- Shawnee county.

Roll of Thunder, Mildred D. Taylor? Sam was T&F'd.

Sounds familiar.

[Cool Cat]

(Original post by 35mm_)
Roll of Thunder, Mildred D. Taylor? Sam was T&F'd.

Sounds familiar.

that's it! thanks very much

'roll of thunder hear my cry, over the river by and by..' (or something)

[alessiocerci]

(Original post by Cool Cat)
and there was another book that we read in 2nd year of high school, that I vaguely remember being about a young boy surviving a nuclear bomb and it described how he heard a loud noise and then saw a mushroom cloud and then he hid in a shelter and he said how everything was destroyed and he saw people checked the radiation levels with a geiger counter.

Z for Zachariah? Edit: nope thats about a girl not a boy

[Cool Cat]

(Original post by alessiocerci)
Z for Zachariah? Edit: nope thats about a girl not a boy

having Googled it, that sounds really familiar! maybe it was a girl in the story after all lol

[kiss_me_now9]

This is driving me insane.

The story is about a group of kids and a giant, he has a lovely garden but when the kids start playing in it he gets jealous and builds a massive wall around it that keeps them all out. It soon snows in his garden and the winter never leaves, and he can't figure out why. Eventually he realises that it's because he's a selfish pig and knocks the wall down and it becomes summer again, and all the kids play in his garden happily

[sparklysparkles]

(Original post by kiss_me_now9)
This is driving me insane.

The story is about a group of kids and a giant, he has a lovely garden but when the kids start playing in it he gets jealous and builds a massive wall around it that keeps them all out. It soon snows in his garden and the winter never leaves, and he can't figure out why. Eventually he realises that it's because he's a selfish pig and knocks the wall down and it becomes summer again, and all the kids play in his garden happily

It's a short story by Oscar Wilde (I've got it in my "Happy Prine and other stories") called "The Selfish Giant" (original!) and can be read online here.