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Two Pieces Of Literature Literature

1. A hard sci-fi short story involving humans on Mars. The main character is waiting for robots to finish building her a little one-woman research station so she can study... something. I forget what. The robots are actually explained in detail: A swarm of coordinated mini-rovers that can convert Martian dirt into a building material. They're smart enough to overcome most obstacles, and can do things like using a big rock as part of a wall. So, the main character goes off to the building site to investigate what's taking the building rovers so long, and finds that they've run into a big alien artifact (think like the Monolith from 2001). And that's it. Random detail: There was also mention of a "crane-printer", which I imagine is a crane that acts like a giant 3D printer to build stuff.

2. A book (part of a series) that I read in elementary school. The protagonist is a "kid inventor"-type character who comes from a long line of geniuses, and the villain is from a long line of people who stole the ideas of people from the main kid's family. He's also a teacher at the kid's school. So, the villain is recovering from the effects of something that happened in the previous book. He got... disintegrated or something, he managed to mostly pull himself back together but he doesn't have a shadow and if I recall correctly he also doesn't weigh very much. The "no shadow" thing gets pointed out when his pet parrot (I think Polly Wants a Microphone was in effect) perches on his shoulder, and someone notices that they can see the parrot's shadow but not his. (But then shouldn't they have also been able to see that shadow of his clothes? Or is he still wearing the outfit he was wearing when he got disintegrated?) The only other thing I remember is that the book opens with a diagram of either the protagonist's or the villain's family tree (maybe both, side by side so we can see who stole what idea).

Several Different Works Literature

So, I was browsing online and I found a bunch of comments of people talking about books they couldn't remember the names of. Here are the ones that really intrigued me:

1. "...a book about a boy turning into a yellow bus. The cover really disturbed me as a kid"

2."...a story where a girl drank petrol and turned herself into a car."

3.“Some kid discovered a "new letter" for the alphabet. The letter was this white-skinned, living and sentient creature. For some reason the kid has to keep the letter away from people who are searching for it. At the end, I'm pretty sure the letter is taken away or killed”

4. "I think I remember a story where a kid turns into an inanimate object then dealing sad as their parents ignore them"

5. "children's book... a kid or teenager who was always on their cellphone being transformed into a cellphone with human features at the end." (Edit: I am not the only person searching for this https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=89671&type=ykts )

Does anyone know what these are?

Edit: One more. "I definitely remember, in a similar fashion, a Kafkaesque version of 'I'm a Little Teapot' which has a child grotesquely morphing into a teapot and having relinquished all that made him human by the final illustration...which is just a dainty teapot sitting on a table surrounded by teacups, saucers, and dishes of lemon slices and sugar cubes."

2nd Edit: I found another one "Reminds me of a story of a boy becoming a tree and gets cut down and turned into a cabinet iirc. Gave me nightmares and got paranoid about the furniture watching me." [The second sentence implies that the story said the boy was still aware as a cabinet]

3rd Edit: "An older cousin had a book about a private school and each poem was about a kid enrolled and how they were actually awful (and how they met their end). This sounds like it could have been one of the chapters... But what I'm seeing in the comments is that there were a lot of books like that, apparently. (The poems I remember were about a kid getting eaten by a living arcade machine with a terrifying illustration and an end line something like "BURP! Pac-Man had an early lunch" and a kid who would torment a dog every day, until one day the dog was loose, unbeknownst to them." I only care about the arcade machine one, and NO, it isn't "Cabinet Man"

sci story where a lady teams up with a bird Literature

Sci story involving a woman stranded on another planet with 2 guys. One is older and one younger. She gets involved with both buy not at the same time. She meets a non talking ostrich size bird called Orn. Bird can't talk but has sentient thoughts is looking for a mate and encounters the woman.

mystery do re mi Literature

Kids mystery novel where the culprit was a group of siblings using the musical scale as nicknames. There's a scene that's like "It's me!" Later revealed to be "It's mi!"

There's also a scene where in order to not suffocate to death the protag(? One of them I think?) Forces himself to sneeze.

The blub on the back also has a excerpt that flat out does not happen. Like the cast running from an erupting volcano with an asterisk that says something like volcano may have calmed down

Activity Book? Literature

There’s this book. It was kind of an activity book with a story. These kid investigate a seemingly haunted lighthouse and find three crooks. The narrator ask questions like: How many dollars does Steve have? Something like that. And the end of the book, the crooks are chased away by an actual ghost while the narrator asks the reader who is chasing them. (It’s the ghost.)

Horse turns into unicorn Literature

There’s this children book I read where this baby horse wants to be a unicorn but takes a fatal fall. They dream they are reunited with the mother. They wake up to find they become a unicorn the mother finds them and the unicorn dies. Yes, it was children story book.

Children's Story About A Grey Kingdom Literature

I've tried here before and got no response, so I'll try again. I recall this children's story from when I was around nine or ten, so I assume it was released prior to 2009 (Rough estimate). It was about this man who I think was the king of a kingdom of music and color who wanders into a different kingdom where color and music are banned, so his kingdom is grey and silent. The colorful king gets caught whistling and is imprisoned in a dungeon with a woman who tells him the grey king is going to force her to marry him.

The two escape from their cage and meet another woman, a very confused chief for the grey king who turned dinner into breakfast. Later in the story, some people from the colorful kingdom who are named "Do, Ri, Mi, Fa, So, La, and Ti," that musical scale, go to save their kind. But Mi gets captured and has their voice stolen. So the colorful king says to the guy (who is also mute) that if he gets Mi's voice back, the colorful king with help him get his back.

At the end of the story, the grey king gets tricked into marrying the chief lady instead of the first woman, while the colorful king and the rest of the gang head back to their colorful kingdom.

Book series about a boy and his annoying brother Literature

There were at least two-three books in the series, with a spin-off book about a side character.

The first book (and the only one I really remember) was about the main character, the boy, getting a pet turtle, and how he then has to deal with his annoying younger brother. At the end of the story, the younger brother eats the turtle, however the boy is then given a pet dog as a replacement pet, who he then names “turtle”

The boy lives in a small apartment, and his dad worked for a juice company whose products taste really bad.

Comic - Man joins brand design team Literature

I'm trying to help my brother find something. He thinks it may have been one story in a larger book, possibly one that mixed prose and comics, or not. Here's his description:

Man joins design team finding a brand for google-like corporation

I remember it was in an anthology of the best American works of fiction or something similar. It may have been the best american nonrequired reading anthology. I read it in the last two years and I believe it was published in the last five, but am not positive about the latter. The story is somewhat dystopian - the corporation has become a huge player in world affairs.

The main character is a young man who joins a design team creating a new brand and logo for a google-out-of-control like organization.

During the story the man is afflicted by a mysterious cold-like sickness supposedly cause by plants on the property. He gets medicine from a semi-sinister doctor at the company, which helps him. They tell him that the sickness is due to allergies, but we never get the full explanation.

The main character goes for a swim each day and sees a woman sitting by the pool that he lacks the courage to talk to. During his last swim, he looks up and she is no longer there. He wonders whether he imagined her entirely.

The design team is led by a man who is somewhat obsessed with primality. He leads the team to break in to the headquarters of their rivals in the final act of the comic.

The last scene is the main character looking at a bloody handprint after injuring himself during the break in. He decides that this will be the new logo of the corporation.

No Title Literature

A small anthology of sci-fi stories based loosely around - get this - Space Mountain. Well, the first story was, anyway; it involved a kid riding the coaster and getting stranded on an alien world. If I remember correctly, the rest were basic kids' sci-fi fare. Anyway, I read this book as a Disney-loving kid, and I just remembered it now, but I can't quite recall the name of it.

No Title Literature

A small anthology of sci-fi stories based loosely around - get this - Space Mountain. Well, the first story was, anyway; it involved a kid riding the coaster and getting stranded on an alien world. If I remember correctly, the rest were basic kids' sci-fi fare. Anyway, I read this book as a Disney-loving kid, and I just remembered it now, but I can't quite recall the name of it.

(SOLVED: The Fabled Fourth Graders Of Aesop Elementary School) Book About a "Cool Teacher" Literature

So, I remember reading this book that was a collection of short stories about kids in this one teacher's class (no, it's NOT Wayside or The Classroom At The End Of The Hall), and I think each story was focusing on a different kid. I can only recall the contents of two stories: For the first one, it was about two boys who spend library time reading the school's collection of National Geographics (it's not explicitly stated, but it's fairly obvious they want to read them for all the tribes where women don't wear shirts). The teacher hides the Nat Geos in different places each day to force them to learn the Dewey Decimal System. The second one I remember is the last one in the book, where everyone's sad about the end of the year but it's revealed that the teacher will be teaching one grade higher the next year, so they still get to be in her class.

Edit: I've recalled another story that MIGHT be from this book, but I'm not 100% sure it is. So, a student is complaining about having to do "hard" math and wishes that they were still in kindergarten. Immediately after they wish it, someone calls over the PA system for them to go to some kindergarten room. There was an actual, non-wish related reason for it (don't remember what) but when they step into the room the kindergarten teacher somehow mistakes them for a new student and has them join in the class. They absolutely beast through the easy math problems, but then comes "circle time". The teacher has the kindergartners sing a stupid song ("Gray squirrel, gray squirrel, swish your bushy tail"), and then one of the kindergartners get mad when the protagonist doesn't "swish their bushy tail" (ie do the song's associated embarrassing "dance moves"). Protagonist wishes they were back in their normal class, as soon as they do so the PA system crackles to life again and they're called back to class. But when they get back they find, to their horror, that their teacher has taught the class that stupid "Gray squirrel" song!

What is the name of this short story? Literature

So, I was browsing when I came across this: "One short story was about the Copses, a family of weretrees. They turned into trees to sleep for the winter... after murdering their neighbors and burying them in the yard for fertilizer." Does anyone know the name of that short story?

Weird Book/Book Series With Objectshifting (Possibly a RIPOFF of Animorphs) Literature

So, I was browsing online and I saw this comment on a Youtube video about 'Super-Brikke': "i don't recall the book specifically, but it sounds like something i read as a kid. there was this weird book in the library near the animorphs series. it was literally just kids turning into shit like a bed lamp or a bathtub. i can't remember many details and this could be a false memory, but maybe it was a series of picture books? i don't know" I want to know what the commenter was talking about, because I'm the kind of person generally known as a "weirdo". (EDIT: WOW did not realize the implications of that. Whoops)

Murdered cat turns into human for revenge (solved!) Literature

This would be a very old Gothic novel—I remember it having one of those great painted covers of a woman in a flowing white gown in front of a big spooky house—probably from between 1940s and 1960s. The premise is that, for whatever reason, one of the villain's particularly cruel acts is killing a cat by dropping it down a well. Then a mysterious, beautiful woman with green catlike eyes shows up and starts systematically ruining the villain's whole life and exposing every terrible thing he's ever done, with the strong implication that the woman is in fact the cat, come back for revenge. The title of the book may have been the woman's or the cat's name.

(SOLVED) Novel or film: Kid plays VR videogame, makes his abusive dad the bad guy Literature

Something I remember reading in the 90s (or maybe very early 2000s), it was in print form but illustrated with photos, so it might have been adapted from a movie.

It was about a boy playing a Virtual Reality videogame for escapism, and getting lost in it to the point that back in real life he'd believe he's still in the game.

The game could be customized to put photos of people on the head of NPCs and enemies; he put his abusive father's face on the game's Big Bad, which made his real-life relapse particularly bad: The kid ends up trying to kill his father with a sword.

The videogame's Big Bad was named Zoltan, but that was in French, so if this media came out in another language the name might have been changed.

Edit: I think I've found it: A 1996 French Made-for-TV Movie called Génération Vidéo (so as I suspected the text◊ was a novelization thereof).

Edit 2: I've even found a review in English! As you can see, the New Media Are Evil and You Can Panic Now are strong with this one.

Girl's house becomes haunted due to her keeping mum about breaking a necklace Literature

It's a children's book, in which a young girl's mother owns a necklace which she doesn't allow her daughter to try on, but which she sometimes does anyway in secret.

One day, she breaks it, but hides the broken necklace and keeps it a secret. Then, a ghost shows up and keeps repeating, "I broke your necklace!", calling itself the Ghost of Secrets. Then, a second ghost shows up, who repeats, "I hid your necklace" and then more ghosts show up, each repeating a different secret.

Eventually, the girl is pestered by these ghosts too much, so she tells the secrets (starting with "I broke your necklace") and they vanish.

Kids book series Literature

I'm looking for a kids book series about a girl who stops evil fairies? by making them do the opposite of what they stand for. I remember a book where one turned people into fish. One book had a guy who didn't want to work and just play. They defeated him by tricking him into fixing the seesaw. The final book has them defeat the wizard to prevent him from becoming mayor.

A book from childhood Literature

Recently I've been revisiting books I read in my childhood, and found out that I enjoy them at least as much as then and in many cases even more. So I found out a lot of such books, but there's one the I remember clearly veeery few details from, because I didn't even read it normally, but skipped sections and maybe even from end to start? Idk, it's been so long.

So, the details I remember is that there are characters named Drake and Elliott, and Drake gets tied up and tortured at one point. Until they had to separate, they were traversing some sort of caves or tunnels or smth like that. Simple google search returned nothing of interest. Additional detail is that there's machete fight at the end (with someone's uncle probably). And another unimportant one because it could happen in like 20% of books, is that there was a conversation with some character's father at the beginning, but I might be misremembering. Sorry for such minute amount of details, but as I said, I didn't read it properly and I "read" it when I was maybe 10? (I'm almost 22 now).

White book of fairy tales and legends Literature

I expect this to be a bit obscure, but I figured I'd give it a shot.

This was an older series of books with legends and fairy tales. They were wrapped in what felt like leather of some kind of foam substitute, as the covers had a bit of give.

The front border and back were white, and within the border was printed a copy of a hand painted image. I belive one of the books had two children on the cover, and another had a stand of trees.

I believe the series was generically titled, and were listed as "volume x". There were pictures printed on some of the pages.

Each of the volumes had stories set around a particular theme.