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openSeer-hybrid super detective Literature
Not a show per se but a character in a show (although finding the show will locate the character too for sure). Almost certainly a book. The character is half-Seer (or descended from a Seer/someone with predictive powers), and although she cannot see the exact future due to impure blood, she has super intuition that lets her make highly precise educated guesses.
openFrog and fly pie (not “yummy”) Literature
This is a children’s book that someone older remembers. A frog eats fly pie and avoids being eaten by owls. Frustratingly, there is a recent kids book called “Yummy Fly Pie”, but it ain’t the one.
openMan experiences being homeless in a town in winter Literature
I have obscure memories of this library book I one read, and if I were to try provide context to some scenes I may be incorrect.
The main character is male, and under whatever circumstances, he tries going to this one town, and stays in at least one motel for a while before having to leave. He practically becomes a homeless man there, and the cold winter conditions only make it worse. He may have tried finding shelter on a boat too, but it didn't work out.
The story ended by him somehow aiding in solving a mystery which a young child, possibly a girl, was involved. Might have been a kidnapping. But other than that, his living condition didn't change as far as I'm concerned.
openShort story about a remote control Literature
A kid's dad got a new remote and he discovers that he can use to affect the world around him. It gets stolen by a bully who uses it to cheat at an eating contest by fast forwarding his eating, but the bully didn't take into account if his body would be able to handle the excess food or not and pukes which causes him to lose the remote and the other boy to get it back.
openSF short story about a society with almost no crime Literature
I read this in a book of sf stories some time in the nineties (although I supect the book was a lot older). It's set in a future society where crime is unknown, until one guy commits a robbery and hijacks an aircar to get away. The police's primary strategy is to ask him to give himself up over the radio, because who wouldn't follow clear instructions from the authorities?
The final twist is that he's not really a criminal at all, he's testing the system and finding it severely wanting.
Edited by DaibhidCopenBook about an African girl with a red cover Literature
As a kid, I remember reading this novel. It was about a girl who lives in an isolated African village with her grandmother. The grandmother tells the girl stories and teaches her how to forage for food in the forest. Apparently one of the girl's parents left for the city some time before (her mother, I think). A bunch of people also come and make a small lake(?) for the village, allowing them to fish. The grandmother disapproved of the lake for some reason. One day, famine comes upon the village. The lake is overfished, and the surrounding forest scoured dry for food. The grandmother dies of malnutrition after months of giving the majority of her food to the girl.
I don't quite remember why, but the girl sees a white heron standing in the lake and takes it as a sign to go to the city to find her mother. She practices her English in preparation for the trip, wondering at how the words in her native language sound more beautiful and musical when compared to their short and straightforward equivalents of 'flower' and 'dove.'
Does anyone know what book this is?
openLooking for a kids book about a princess Literature
I’m driving myself crazy trying to remember a book I listened to on cd as a kid
The main character was a princess, I think. She was definitely high class.
She would lecture the male lead every time he said the word stomach. I distinctly remember the line “Don’t say stomach, it’s vulgar”
At one point they end up in a school with some black paths that brainwashed you if you walked on them. I remember one of the evil school’s classroom reading things was a dark version of Mary had a Little Lamb that ended with Mary getting stoned to death for breaking the rules.
resolved Kids' book where a boy tells stories to his grandpa (Solved) Literature
The book was pretty short, I read it in less than a hour as a kid. The boy has a lot of brothers, one older and several younger, and his grandfather works in a lighthouse. The lighthouse is mentioned to have one huge step in the stairs. The boy tells his grandpa about bad stuff that's happened to him, but his grandpa always has a worse story, like when the boy ran out of toilet paper and the grandpa was bitten on the head by a shark. But then the boy remembers the time when his older brother tricked him to walking on the road when he was little. He did this because their grandma always gave the bigger candy to the boy who could answer correctly to her question or something? And one time the protagonist answered correctly and the older brother was jealous. The main boy was wearing a bunny costume for some reason when this happened, and the older brother was punished for this by making him wash the younger brothers' diapers
Edit: It's Legend of the Worst Boy in the World
Edited by HqamiopenA book where the man is being chased inside a building Literature
It's an old book with a black paperback cover. Everyone wants the protagonist dead. Most parts of the book cover the chase between the protagonist and his killer (or killers? I don't remember). I also remember him creating a weapon using kitchen ingredients in one of the chapters.
Edited by maythroditeopenShort sci-fi stories (1 UNSOLVED) Literature
As a kid with no internet in the 2000s, I was a frequent library visitor. I especially liked sci-fi anthologies, some of them probably relatively old. Some stories I remember to this day and they bug me to no end.
1 story: The protagonist lands on another planet. There are human-like aliens there who implant some kind of gemstones into their foreheads which gives them telepathy/mind control powers. They do the same to the protagonist. They use those stones to control animals (I remember somebody controlling a bird and looking through its eyes) but turns out there is another species of aliens that can do the same to humans. I think this was actually their planet originally, and the human-like ones are descendants of those who crash-landed there like the protagonist. The other aliens are giants with very long lifespan, but as they grow older, they start turning to stone. Almost all of them are dead now, only one is still alive, but he's mostly stone, so he can't even move. In the end, the protagonist escapes the planet. While he's on a spaceship that's about to destroy the alien, the protagonist telepathically contacts him, half-expecting the alien to try to mind-control him to stop the countdown. But the alien is almost glad because he's been so lonely, he'd rather die than remain the last of his species.
2 story (SOLVED): There is a city that's surrounded by a huge wall and no one knows what's behind it. Eventually, people manage to climb to the top. The wall continues to the horizon and an expedition sets out to see where it ends. They walk for a very long time. As they walk, the sun doesn't set, but it looks like it's dimming and everything is getting darker. Then the sun starts to brighten again and they see the end of the wall. But when they reach it, they see their own city. It's stated that the wall is like a Mobius strip: it doesn't have other side. (But for some reason I thought that the expedition didn't end up in their city, but in some parallel reality version of it.)
3 story (SOLVED):
The protagonist gets a job as an assistant for a Houdini-type escape artist stage magician. He falls in love with a woman who is another assistant and in relationship with the magician. Except the magician is a jerkass who treats her badly, and the protagonist wants to get rid of him. There is a big show being planned where the magician is going to get inside a Klein bottle
, but getting out of it is supposed to be impossible. The magician knows he can't do it for real, so he is planning to surreptitiously replace the Klein bottle with a replica while on the stage, but when the show starts, the protagonist doesn't switch bottles. The magician realizes this only when he's already half-way inside the bottle. He can't get out and breaking the bottle would kill him, so he is stuck there forever.
opensci fi horror anthology for kids? Literature
I remember getting this book through a Schoolastic book order. I remember a few of the shorts:
- The first short one had this kid whose mom invented an immortality drug and he took it despite being told not to and got I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream'd between layers of building construction. But he was also a really unlikable protagonist because he feels super entitled to anything he wants and had his butler decapitate an immortal monkey to see for himself if it worked (I think he also did something awful to his dog??)
- And then there was one where a girl found a phone to the future in her dad's work office(science lab?) and starts talking to this girl who lives in the future. She asks the girl from the future when and how she'll die, and the girl from the future looks up her death records, and tells her she and her whole family died in a plane crash at a specific time on the night on the day they're planning to travel for Thanksgiving. She manages to convince her parents to drive instead of fly, and she thinks she's in the clear, but actually they just crossed time zones, and a plane makes an emergency landing on the highway, running over their car.
- This teenage girl is babysitting a boy at the park, but is doing her homework and only halfway paying attention to her surroundings. At first there's only one other kid (I think in a red shirt and blue pants? Different clothes than the boy she's babysitting) there, but as time goes on the number of kids in red shirts and blue pants keeps increasing. And she sometimes sees one coming out of the tube slide but never actually sees one climb up the back. And she eventually realizes that they're all the same kid, but they swarm her and throw her down the tube slide. The support pillar holding up the middle of the tube slide is actually a pipe, and she falls down it into this mass that's creating the kids by budding, and it starts to digest her. It ends with her thinking something ironic about recycling soda cans.
Anyone remember this?
openYA sci-fi book Literature
The book takes place in a sci-fi-ish dystopia where half the planet is controlled by dinosaurs (or dinosaur-like creatures).
The protagonist is a young person (I think they were a girl, late teenage years) who lives in a poor place where a deadly disease is spreading.
They join a competition with some vaguely 'hunger games'-like elements to go on an expedition to the place where the dinosaurs are in control. This competition involves both diving and climbing a cliff.
They end up succeeding and end up being challenged to collect something (dinosaur eggs?) on this expedition, and end up meeting someone from a previous expedition.
I remember something ending up being a trick in the ending? There was some big plot twist? It might have been the first of a series?
I read this book in around 2018-2019 and it was from the school library. I remember the cover of the book looking slightly odd somehow?
resolved Looking for short story in a collection book Literature
I’m looking for a story about an overly angry man, his house after years of abuse from the man attacks him back while he’s in the bathroom. Think there's a razor involved.
Thanks.
Edited by TiljaopenReoccurring Life book Literature
I'm looking for a book that I really liked but was only able to read the first few pages before giving it back to the library Basically, the premise was pretty simple-this guy keeps living his life over and over. I only read up to 3 lifetimes-he lives his first one normally, the second one I think he's a bit spooked and kills himself (I don't remember the second iteration too well) . The third one, he tries to live normally for a bit before deciding to confide in his wife or someone like that. He gets put into a psychiatric ward, and because it was round about 60s-70s at the time I think, is treated terribly and dies of a pill overdose. That's all I read up to. Please tell me if you know what book this is! I've been looking for like, 3 years now.
openYA (Mystery?) Timeline Swap Novel Literature
It's a novel about a boy and a girl in two similar timelines, but with one key difference. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I'm pretty sure it involved a train accident and the death of a family member. At some point, for whatever reason, they switch, and they have to figure out what's going on. I'm pretty sure the following details are important to the story, but there's a possibility that I could be mixing it up with something else: The property that they live on is very important - there is a graveyard nearby that contains a name that is important to the story, and (I think?) there was a murder in the past in the house. I think it takes place during the wintertime. The details are a bit fuzzy, but that's what I remember. Thank you!
openKids Space Book Series Literature
I remember this book series I got as a kid. It was a nonfiction series, and each book was about space. Each book also came with a kit that had to do with the topic. I remember one book was about the sun and the moon, and had beads that reacted to UV light. Another book was about the possibility of aliens, and had little toys you could use to make your own alien. Another book I believe was about spacecraft
Other toys included an inflatable ball in the shape of the earth and a pump you could use to make marshmallows expand.
It may have been in different issues. The latest the series could have came out was mid-2000's
openPendulum story Literature
I remember reading a short story long ago, not sure if anyone has read it. What I remember is that there was a kid in bed with no sound other than the ticking of the pendulum on his clock. I don't remember why, but for whatever reason he opened the clock and grabbed the pendulum, stopping it. However, it ends up stopping time completely.
That's all I remember.
openSci Fi Middle Grade Book Literature
I've asked this before months ago, but I forgot it bc ADHD loves obstructing my life.
The book, the first in a trilogy, is about a boy, probably an orphan, who really likes comics, much to the chagrin of his guardians at the orphanage. I don't remember a lot of what happens in between but I remember that this boy gets taken to a futuristic city full of a Hodge podge of races clearly based on comic book tropes (aliens, vikings, robots etc).
The cover is reddish or brown, and on it there's the silhouette of the boy who's looking up at a gigantic statue in the city.
If anyone could help I'd be very thankful!

A self-proclaimed criminal mastermind along with his wife and mentally challenged brother kidnaps a little girl - the daughter of a famous surgeon. The mastermind says he has perfected the art of kidnapping. He also holds the doctor's wife hostage while the criminal's wife is harassing the doctor and the mentally challenged brother is holding the kid. That's how they commited all previous abductions however this time it goes out of control when the doctor and his wife decide they're not giving in to the criminal's demands without a fight.
The title was something like "longest 24 hours" but I'm not certain.
Edited by sohibil