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A short story set in imperial Russia. The narrator is a man who calls in a young woman who's a governess or something similar in his house to pay her what he owes, and he starts from the amount they'd agreed on and keeps subtracting small amounts for expenses he says she's cost and other excuses, until there's only one ruble left. She doesn't argue through the whole process and is going to accept the one ruble, and he reveals that he was playing a joke on her and means to pay the full amount and tells her she needs to stand up for herself more. She replies that she's had jobs where they never paid her at all. That's not quite the end, but I don't remember how he responds.
Edited by FerdinandtheBullopenNo Title Literature
This was a kids' book or comic, color illustrations and all. I must have read in in the 00's, but for all I know it was from the 90's. It was about cavemen and one was an inventor who was ignored. I remember being surprised that the cavewomen was bare chested. There was also a line about the inventor talking about fruit juice and someone that I think was his dad saying that fruit was a type of lump and that juice was like water, so fruit juice was lumpy water. Everyone thought that the inventor was crazy and would end up like those weirdos that paint on walls and in the end he did.
openNo Title Literature
I'm wondering about a children's chapter book I probably read around 2002-2005, though it could have been older. It may have been published by Scholastic. The main character is a girl, probably in middle school (though she could have been a little younger) from a poor family: just her mom, her, and her little sister. I think the main character takes on a lot of responsibility for the family (maybe the mom was depressed or alcoholic?). The thing that really stands out in my mind though was that the younger sister had this weird ability where if she pictured a melting clock (like in that famous Dali painting) with a certain time on it while she was falling asleep, she'd wake up exactly at that time the next day. Every night, the younger sister would ask the main character what time to "set her head" for.
openNo Title Literature
My memory's a lot fuzzy on this one, because it was years and years ago when I was small, I heard it as an audiobook, slept through half of it, and I keep getting bits of it mixed in my mind with the Charlie Bone book I listened to on the same car trip, but here goes:
I'm not sure if this was in the book or if it was from yet another book, but I think there was a prologue where a man is wandering through the woods, lost, and he hears screaming from all around, eventually he finds a rock or tree with a bunch of names carved into it, and that's all I remember from that scene before it ended. it stuck out in my mind because I remember it being far too scary for a small child to listen to, but still excellent.
Two boys (good friends but not related), teenaged I think, are spending the summer(?) at one of the boys' uncle(?)'s house. I can't remember anything but vague generalities up to the climax. The two boys end up caught in a supernatural contest between good and evil. One boy is assigned as the champion for good, one for evil, but they're not told which, only that they must...get to a throne, I think? Wear a special crown? Something like that, and whoever got to the macguffin first won the battle of good and evil for his side.Some creepy evil dude harasses them as they try to reach the end of the game, hampering one and hindering the other. Naturally, they assume that the one being held back is the champion of good and the one being helped by the evil dude is the champion of evil.
However, at the climax, through some mechanism I can't recall, they figure out that the evil guy was manipulating them all along, tricking them into thinking they were on the sides opposite of the ones they were really on because they were too good to help the evil side. They realize this while in the room with the macguffin. The creepy guy is there too, I think, and he's trying to kill them both at this point with shurikens or razor frisbees or the like. I don't actually know if the razor frisbees are in the same scene as the climax, but they were definitely there. I don't remember how it ends.
Any ideas, tropers? The release date could be anywhere from late 90's to mid-2000's, or maybe even earlier.
openNo Title Literature
An illustrated children's book that was read to me when I was small some time during the 1970s in the UK.
The main character is an Austin Mini motor car that shares a garage with a vintage Bentley. The Bentley is boastful and constantly tells stories of his past as a racing car and his winning a major race (either heavily implied or outright stated to be Le Mans - Bentleys did indeed win Le Mans on numerous occasions throughout the 1920s).
During the story the Mini takes the family who own him on a day trip to the beach, where they are cut off by the tide. The Mini somehow manages to rescue them. When he returns to the garage he modestly doesn't tell the Bentley about rescuing the family.
I remember the cars being illustrated in a fairly realistic way (possibly with pupils in headlamps for eyes).
The Bentley may have been something along the lines of a 41/2 litre or Speed Six.
The Mini may have been one of the sporty Austin/Morris Cooper models.
As you can probably tell, I was car mad when I was a kid (and still am a little).
Edited by AspectiferopenNo Title Literature
A children's book about these children who have a pet dog named Rascal. All I can remember is that it took place in some wood or something.
Edited by mimitchi33openNo Title Literature
It was a purple book with a single arrowhead on the cover, in the Sci-Fi genre. It was about this tribe that lived near a swamp, and they were in conflict with nearby species. The main character stutters and his brother is the leader of the tribe. New species fall from the sky periodically; one day a lady (same species as main character) falls from the sky, speaking in tongues. Main character recovers the lady's translator and they go on a journey, abandoning the tribe, to get the lady back into the sky to her people. In the end, they discover another person from the sky, the main character is forced to kill them, and lady returns back to her people; it's revealed everything is all one big experiment.
No idea what this book's title is, please let me know if you have an idea!
openNo Title Literature
Alright here's one. A while back I was in a borders and saw this series where the title of each book spelled out CIRCLE but I can't find it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? If it helps I think the first one was called chaos
openNo Title Literature
Hi everyone, I'm looking for a book on behalf of a friend of mine. Sadly, she can't remember very much about it.
Her description: "A girl named Katie (or similar) discovers a hidden world and the existence of fairies. She meets both evil and good creatures, a water spirit that teaches her about magic, among others."
openNo Title Literature
This one is bugging me horribly. There were at least two books in the series, involved a set of kids in modern times living in a medieval castle (I don't remember why, but I'm pretty sure that their parents were there and there was something involving restoration). I read it as a kid, so it was published by 1990 at least. Plotwise, I remember that there was something sinister going on with the workmen, possibly looking for a hidden treasure. To try to suss out what was going on, the kids make their own sort of boom mike with a fishing pole and a tape-recorder so that they can listen in. Eventually, the kids find the hidden chamber, which required access via a secret door lever. I remember that it was semi-educational with a lot of information about the construction of real castles. I want to say that they made mention of how historical castles had spiral staircases that ascended clockwise because it meant that the defenders had their right hand free while attackers would be forced to use their left hand or have their attacks blocked by the central column.
openNo Title Literature
A science fiction story about a colony of humans on another planet. Earth was on the verge of Mutually Assured Destruction, and a group of (scientists?) sent a whole bunch of fetuses on a ship to said planet, to be Raised by Robots. The conflict begins when it turns out that Earth's humans didn't kill themselves off, and they want their colony back...
Found it: Voyage From Yesteryear by James P. Hogan
Edited by IMpishopenNo Title Literature
Another thing! Not quite literature, but there is no category for plays/theater, so this was the best option.
I'm looking for a particular stage adaptation of "The Three Musketeers" that my elementary/middle school performed sometime around 2003-2005. It was obviously written for children/youth to perform. I definitely played a character called nothing but "The Old Blind Woman," and her recurring line was "Spare a franc for the old blind woman!" She was called on to give some kind of testimony at the end of the play. There was also a character called "Blade" or something along those lines who was supposed to perform a dance with a scarf. One character (D'artagnan's sister?) had a line that read, "He's *my* little brother, so if you want to chop his head off, go ahead!" Also at some point there was a really lame "back of my hand" joke. (Character A: "I know this forest like the back of my hand!" *Turns hand around* "What's that?!" Character B: "The back of your hand!")
These details are pretty specific, but my Google powers have failed me so far in my attempts to track this play down. I would guess that it was distributed by a pretty small-scale publisher and might never have made it to the Internet. Can anyone help me find it?
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Are there any novels in the now defunct Star Wars expanded universe, written before revenge of the sith, that state or strongly imply that Darth Vader killed Padme? The reason I ask this is that I distinctly remember around the time attack of the clones was released that kids on my bus would talk about star wars. And they'd say that Darth Vader killed his wife. When I asked how they knew that they'd say "read the books". Now my memory could be wrong, but I don't think it is.
Edited by jjjjopenNo Title Literature
EDIT: Actually, disregard. A minor detail (a charcater name) just confirmed that the work I'm thinking of is indeed the one I thought it was.
Edited by SolipSchismopenNo Title Literature
I'm trying to remember the title of a picture book. I don't know when it was published, but it was around at least 15 years ago, maybe 20.
The two elements I remember are 1) a stuffed animal — possibly a rabbit — and 2) a small house-like structure in a garden (possibly a shed or a small greenhouse). The kid who owned the stuffed animal liked to play in the little house, and I think he/she left the animal in the house at one point and forgot where it was. I think it was raining at one part of the story. And maybe the sun came out at around the same time the kid found the stuffed animal again, I don't know.
openNo Title Literature
Okay, this one is going to be weird, because I actually can't remember for sure what type of media it was. I'm going to mark it as 'literature', because it being an illustrated book or graphic novel seems more likely than anything else.
I remember seeing a bunch of print ads for something about this group of zombie kids. Judging by the age I was around the time, it was probably aimed at children, and not an adult thing with a cartoon-ish style.
The style looked a LOT like Gorillaz, but I can say with certainty that that is not it. Just a very similar style, and similar looking characters?
I don't remember a ton about it, since it was just a series of ads I probably saw at bookstores, but I remember one of the zombies had no legs, and they pushed themselves around on a skateboard instead.
I remember getting a little insert ad for it in something I bought. That's why I'm having difficulty remembering for sure if it was a book, since I really remember it being a video game I got it out of, but it was more likely a book since I'd know if there was a game series like this. I can't remember what book it would have been in, though.
This would have been like 2005-2010 or so, and I'm just really curious what it was, since all I ever saw was ads.
openNo Title Literature
Hi. I'm looking for two things.
Firstly, a scifi(-ish?) chapter book that I would have read in elementary school (so 7+ years ago)
It took place in the future, at a point when there were people living on other planets. Earth did have a human population, but it wasn't large and generally consisted of people too poor to live anywhere else. There was somewhere between one and three children who were the main characters. (I'm pretty sure it was two, one girl and one boy, but I might be wrong.) The story began with then in a boarding school or orphanage.
There was a garbage dump or orphanage nearby and the children found a robot there. It was either broken down or just old. For some reason, they ended up leaving the school with this robot and traveling. I don't remember the resolution of the book at all.
I'm also looking for a children's illustrated picture book that I would have read around 10-12 years ago. I remember next to nothing about it, but I think the general theme was people starting to live in tree-houses and basically rejoining nature. It felt very rain-forest/jungle-y. Magic seeds may have been involved.
openNo Title Literature
I remember this book that the teacher read aloud to us when I was in elementary school (so some time in The '90s) It involved a kid who had Abusive Parents and I think an evil aunt as well. The book deals with him trying to escape them by going to Nebraska (I forget why). Also I think at one point the kid had a elephant as a pet/companion (ya it seems weird to me also) it was a chapter book though not a picture book.
Edited by BootlebatopenNo Title Literature
Trying to remember (obviously) a book I mostly read maybe 9 or 10 years ago. It was science fiction, and I seem to remember it being sort of like The Thing but in Florida (or some coastal US location), and the infection or w/e it was, was caused by nanomachines (I think). I also seem to remember the cover art having lots of red and blue, and I think it was a x-ray of cross section of a human skull with all sorts of weird machinery attached.
This ringin any bells for anyone?
An Urban Fantasy novel I read a few years ago (the book is not less than 2 years old and not more than about 15). The protagonist is female, and I think casts spells or something. One of her allies, who she meets early on (and maybe ends up living with) is a drag queen who turns out to be a)straight and b) a military veteran of some type, possibly a Marine. He has no magic/supernatural stuff going on, he's just a Marine turned drag performer. I'm pretty sure the book is set on the West Coast of the U.S., possibly in Seattle.