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opencan't remember Literature
In a Nancy Drew book, the titular heroine is shoved down a garbage chute. Initially disoriented, she's horrified to quickly realize that she's trapped on the trash compacter's conveyor belt. Luckily, a malfunction stops the machinery in the nick of time. What is the name of the book with that stuff?
resolved Unknown YA novel about a valley of hidden people who get invaded. Literature
- YA novel from the '80s possibly early '90s. Maybe even late 70s.
- Characters are Hobbit like almost and live in a hidden valley.
- A tribe of vicious Invaders come over and through their mountains and invade them. Their enemies use poison Spears and make you some mushrooms a lot both as food and as antidote.
- At one point the characters make a hot air balloon and explore outside their valley.
- Some of the young characters are captured by the Invaders and this is how they discover the information about the mushrooms.
- The book had a fair number of illustrations demonstrating what the characters were working on.
- Early part of the book focuses on the sort of bucolic rural lifestyle of the people.
- Possibly post-apocalyptic and a pseudo fantasy setting.
- I have only seen it in hardcover.
- Publish no later than the mid-90s.
resolved silkworm humans Literature
a short(?) story about a group of human girls that had been imprisoned & genetically modified to act as sort of giant silkworms for someone (the government? freelancing evil scientists? i don't recall that part). the silk came out of their fingers & was a different color for everyone; there was a detail about how everyone tried to guess which color theirs would be and always guessed wrong, but the color was always "personal" to them (idk how to word this part). the silk had to be extruded with a machine. one girl committed suicide by not using the machine for weeks until the silk built up inside her and choked her. the story ended by the girls wrapping up the guards/officials of the place they were at with silk to kill them, like spiders, and then building themselves cocoons to become Something New, which was left for the reader to imagine.
i think this was in an anthology, but i might be remembering wrong and it was standalone, or even longform. i read it on kindle a couple of years ago.
resolved Unlicensed Minecraft book about griefer teleported into the game Literature
I read this book in middle school, circa 2013-14? I believe it was the first in a trilogy or series but that I never got the chance to read on. All I remember is that the main character was a boy who was antagonistic in Minecraft servers, and then he got isekaied into the game and underwent some sort of character development in his quest… getting home or saving the overworld or whatever. One of the prominent characters was a villager who I think underwent a heroic sacrifice in the end?
openPossibly Jewish folktale Literature
A story that goes like this: a remote town is preparing for a (likely Jewish) holiday, so that when a traveling merchant comes by they're too busy to buy anything. The disgruntled merchant leaves but spitefully puts a curse on the town (via amnesia powder) that makes them forget about the holiday. Then a group of children (who'd been sent to gather branches in the forest and so weren't affected by the curse) wonder why the preparations have stopped, get blank responses from the adults, and decide to perform the ceremonies themselves, which breaks the curse. And the epilogue shows that the merchant accidentally sniffed his own amnesia powder in the middle of a forest and was never heard from again.
openA scifi/fantasy novel about canine aliens using captured spirits to fly through space Literature
I read this probably about 20 years ago, but now I can't remember the title or the author. It followed the life of a girl through repeated upheavals, broken into roughly three parts.
In the first part, the girl lives in an isolated village. The village is attacked by raiders during a harsh winter, with both sides managing to wipe each other out, leaving her the sole survivor.
For the second part, she turns out to have witch powers, so the local faction of witches adopt her and take her to the city to train her. Witch powers are basically capturing and harnessing spirits and using them to accomplish things — larger spirits can achieve greater effects, and your power as a witch is more or less determined by the size of spirit you can control. The most powerful witches can fly into space — where there are much larger spirits than anything on the planet. The largest ones, which only a handful of witches can handle, can be used to travel between stars. Naturally, the protagonist eventually reaches this level, with the plot of this section revolving around her growing in power and eventually facing off against the most powerful witch alive (a member of an enemy faction), who she is able to defeat despite being weaker (at the time) by outsmarting her.
The last section happens when she, during her interstellar travels, encounters aliens that travel through space using technology rather than using spirits (either heavily implied or outright stated to be humanity, I forget which). They end up coming into conflict, with the witches being individually more powerful, but the humans having much greater numbers. Over time, the number of FTL-capable witches dwindles, and it becomes clear that they'll lose if things continue as they have been. By now, the protagonist is an old woman, and feels increasingly isolated from society as witches have become less and less relevant to daily life (since they've been off fighting in space).
In the end, she gathers up all the remaining FTL-capable witches for a final confrontation with the enemy fleet. They approach within striking distance, and then all release their spirits, effectively committing mass suicide, as a demonstration that they want peace between their civilizations, with the understanding that their time had already passed and their society was moving on without the witches regardless.
Edited by NativeJovianopenBook tittle Literature
I'm looking for a YA book about a dystopian society that takes away the babies of teen parents and gives them to rich people; I know that the main character is a girl and that's it. Also its not unwind
resolved Realistic Fiction about girl hiking Appalachian trail Literature
It was a middle grade coming of age/finding oneself novel about a protagonist whose separated parents had named her after a mountain in Appalachia, and in order to disciver herself she runs away from home to hike the trail. She meets a trail buddy she nicknames Beagle, who's an adult she forms a crush on (it's not reciprocated). At some point her distant father finds her and tries to convince her to come home or at least go back to mom.
openya series, ferryman motif Literature
it was a ya series (maybe a trilogy), with a figure that is a ferryman in the vein of Charon..I think the first book might involve a suicide, but I can't remember. it's not a fantasy novel and I think the ferryman is an urban legend of some kind? the main character is a teenage boy who's sort of an outcast I think. sorry if this sucks :-[
openShel Silverstein poem about monsters Literature
I remeber in one of the books by Shel Silverstein where there were a series of poems where a boy tells his mother he saw monsters right behind her, but she doesn't believe here until the last one.
resolved The Push Literature
Not to be confused with "Push" by Sapphire. "The Push" is a 2021 novel by Ashley Audrain about a mother who fails to bond with her daughter, who begins to suspect her daughter of unsavoury deeds.
resolved Twilight Zone story Literature
From the "And Your Reward Is Infancy" TV trope, an example was provided, a story from the Twilight one. An ambitious man murders some aliens who move in next door and receive this trope by one surviving alien, he begs mercy for his family. The twist is now the man is one of the aliens. I searched this like crazy, but could not find anything. The most popular search I get for Twilight Zone and aliens is the Monsters due on Maple Street and that is not the correct story. Please help, thanks much!
resolved Rainbow Bridge Animal Shelter?? Literature
I've been agonizing over this for YEARS now, and Google apparently doesn't have all of the answers, so let's try here! I remember this children's chapter book series from when I was a kid. A young girl named Sam would volunteer or work at some Animal Shelter that I THINK was called The Rainbow Bridge or something. I vaguely remember there also being a rodent creature - either a hamster or a guinea pig - named Sugarspice. Unfortunately, that's all I remember, but I would be thrilled if someone happened to find the name of this series!
openWoman Scared Of Tornadoes Literature
A scene from a book from English class long ago, where a woman living in a place regularly hit by tornadoes is constantly going to her female neighbor for reassurance (she's scared not just by tornadoes but apparently everything). The neighbor was sympathetic at first but the woman's constant neediness is getting on her nerves.
One of them was possibly named Cassie.
openOld 1980s-1990s word map book that described various cultures of the world Literature
I vaguely remember this geography book from the 1980s-1990s. It had maps of pretty much every country with brief descriptions of said countries. It would the describe the various cultures and tribes of each country . Real live photos of cities and tribes of each country.
I remember the book mentioning woodabe tribes of Africa and the Dani tribe of asia
I believe the book cover was blue with white dots (stars) and the title was white
Edited by monkeyheroineopenEntertainment Weekly Pixar Literature
Issue of Entertainment Weekly that has a page about upcoming Pixar movies. The movies featured are
Toy Story 4 (With a Day of the Dead plot, may be referring to Coco) Incredibles 2
openXenofiction Magic Series Literature
A series of at least four (4) xenofiction novels. One of them definitely centered on a badger. The series has a name along the lines of 'wild magic' or 'animal magic'. I unfortunately remember very little about the actual plot, I can only really remember the cover, brown edging with a badger in a yellow circle.

This is a book I read a long time ago. As I recall, the world started to sort of fade away. Everything became dimmer, and food and water lost all taste. I'm pretty sure there were monsters appearing, but I recall both the monsters and a number of people would repeat "Rantassas" something, which is supposed to mean "serve the Old Ones". Main characters are a woman and a man. The man has some sort of power to "shift" from one place to another. It turns out that these "Old Ones" are noncorporeal beings (I think they typically possessed people when they were on this side) trapped in another plane, and they're trying to get out, but to do so they need the help of a supernatural "Guide" and the power of that man, whom the Guide will possess to shift from our world to theirs and back, providing a path through which these beings can come to our world.