When you find yourself trying to remember a show (or any works) that's on the tip of your tongue but just out of reach, come here - the collective brain of the TVTropes community can probably help. Post all the details you can remember (examples help). If you're looking for a trope, head over to Trope Finder. Have general questions about tropes? Visit Ask The Tropers!
Find a Show:
openNo Title Literature
I have two here:
1) A (I believe) historical fiction book with little stories about a Tom Sawyer-esque figure. The narrator of the book was his brother or something. Th Tom Sawyer-esque kid was something of a smart aleck genius type and well liked by other kids...two subplots I recall occurring was that one, they had a schoolteacher they all hated, so the main kid came up with a plan to frame him as an alcoholic, like putting beer cans into his coat. The second was how one of their other friends had lost a leg in a farm accident, so the Tom Sawyer-esque guy and his brother helped him train the other leg to be this really good leg wrestler. Or something. My fifth grade teacher read this to our class (I'm in university now), but I forgot to ask him over the summer what it actually was.
2) A beautifully crafted picture book that has to do with the alphabet. The entire story is that it's a message left behind from some explorer guy who tells you at the beginning that he's rediscovered a species everybody thought was extinct, but to make sure it stays safe he left clues in the pictures. Every picture is themed with a letter (A, B, C, etc.) and you need to find little clues. At the end, it turned out you needed to go back to the front cover, with all your clues, and the extinct animal is hidden in the picture...all the pictures were so vivid and colourful. I did solve it in the end, but I remember it was a super fun and intense time for me as a child...it took me WEEKS to solve.
openNo Title Literature
I recall reading a short story in school. It's about a blind beggar who tells how he became blind to a rich man. The beggar explains that he used to be able to see, but he worked in a chemical factory. One day there was a fire, and as everyone ran out, the beggar was knocked down and several people ran over him. He escaped in time to avoid being burned, but he was blinded by the chemical fumes. The twist ending is that his story is a lie. The rich man worked at the same plant, and he is the one who was knocked down. In fact, the beggar was the man who had knocked him down. The beggar then screams that it is unfair that he had gotten out in time but was blinded, while the man he knocked down was not only all right, but went on to become rich. The rich man then said, "I don't know what you're complaining about. I'm blind too."
openNo Title Literature
I think it must've been a comic, and the cover of it was yellow. There was an intro where this group of people duke it out, and then it takes a step back from the action to show that they were actually sperm. Then the comic starts for real.
openNo Title Literature
Hopefully I'll remember to check this one before it disappears, unlike all my other attempts to use this — I keep forgetting to check back, and forgetting what I even asked. Anyway, it's a Stephen King short story about a man who inherits or otherwise comes by a special scythe and field of wheat — the wheat is humanity, and when a stalk becomes ripe, it's that person's time to die. The man thinks he has ultimate power over life and death and can use this to protect his family forever... but it turns out he only has control of death — when a person's time is up, it's up, and failing to harvest them doesn't mean saving them — it means allowing them to exist in an unnatural comatose state. He discovers this via his family, and doesn't take it well.
openNo Title Literature
I remember reading a book series back in elementary school. A bunch of tiny aliens invade this kid's room. There were four or five of them, if I remember correctly. The only thing I really remember about them is that one of them was asked if he had brothers or sisters, and he responded "no, but I do have siblings," which weirded out the main character. Also, I think that there was some villain they were trying to defeat, and his name was really short and it may have been composed of initials, though I can't remember what the letters were.
Edited by VentisiaopenNo Title Literature
I just pulled this out of Victory Is Boring. It doesn't really work as an example.
- A young-adult(?) novel(? part of a bunch of novels?) I can't remember the name of had two young Star-Crossed Lovers who have to fight a war in order to be together. After a lifetime of hardship and adventure the girl, now a woman, finds peace so boring, her now-husband so dull, and their child so annoying that one day she just walks out the door and keeps going, ignoring her husband and child's calls.
openNo Title Literature
There was a book I read once in high school. The only few aspects I remember are that the heroes can control portals to other realms. Several scenes stick out: The main character was testing out his power on a dummy or something, and opened a portal to the sun. After it burned the target to a crisp, he makes a comment about looking away or needing sunglasses. They were at someone's house, and he had a series of commands that opened various portals for use as a toilet. (one to do business, one to spray water for cleaning, etc.) I swear there was one scene when the main character and his love interest were in a bathroom together and she just went without waiting for him to leave. (what is it with the bathrooms?) And perhaps the main characters were all related somehow? (Maybe not. Don't know for sure.)
Any hints would be lovely. Thanks much!
openNo Title Literature
I think this was a Judy Blume book but I can't be too certain, as I didn't pay much attention to the author name.
There was a pair of girls who were friends. The protagonist's mother was pregnant, and the best friend had a younger sister who was two years old named Mathilda who they called BM (heh). Most of the plot revolved around the main character getting used to the idea of having a sibling. I want to say it was set in a city but I didn't pay much attention to it at that point. I also want to say there was a backyard camping trip that got rained out but that may be me remembering some detail from another story.
Edit: I checked Judy Blume's website and didn't find anything that matched up in her novels, so scratch that. XD
Edited by SylvanestraopenNo Title Literature
It's a book series, centered around these colored stones, or gems. I only read the one book.
This kid, male, about 12(?) finds a red stone during a school trip (I think to a museum). When he picks it up, he's transported to a different, desert world. He's mistaken for a military recruit, forced to train with all the other boys. He runs away at one point, into the desert.
openNo Title Literature
I saw this book at a Borders about 10 months ago and read the first chapter before I had to leave. I think it had a red cover with a white tree on it, though I'm not sure. It was set in WWII era England, and the protagonist was a preteen boy. His mother had died, and his father read a lot of newspapers, but he read fairy tales to remember her. From the back of the book, I would guess that the stories came to life at one point, but I only read like 20 pages... It probably didn't come out before 2005, and I think it won an award or two.
openNo Title Literature
This was a book about an ancient Roman (or ancient Greek, but I'm pretty sure it was Roman) man who was a lawyer, solved some mystery of some sort, and ultimately became a senator- I think.
I know for sure that it was an adult book about ancient Rome/Greece, not shying away from any details, and about a man who started as a lawyer. And I don't think it was anyone famous- or as we think of "famous", i.e. not Julius Ceaser.
openNo Title Literature
In the 80s I read a science fiction book about an orphaned girl (I think her parents were killed at the beginning, perhaps for being political dissidents). She and her brother go to an orphanage. Her brother is rebellious and keeps getting into trouble. She wins some kind of state lottery and is freed from the orphanage. She goes to free her brother, but he has been brainwashed (or perhaps lobotomized?). She may then use her lottery winnings to buy a spaceship? I think the title of the book was "Young XXXX", where XXXX is the girls name (and I think it was two syllables), and it may have been the beginning of a trilogy.
openNo Title Literature
I remember a book from school. It was probably YA fiction from the subject matter.
I think I remember that the hero was a boy, young teen or old adolescent. He had some magical powers related to life, the element of Gold, and the roman god Janus (or possibly Jupiter, but I'm almost sure it was Janus).
His enemy was an evil wizard who had a lead amulet marked with the symbol of Saturn that could cast death magic. I think it turned people into lead statues. The boy was the only one who could counter it, and his touch could turn them back to flesh again. I think I remember that it ended up with the wizard's magic rebounding on him and turning HIM into lead, and the boy started to touch the statue's face (in wonder that the ordeal was finally over) and then stopped short, realizing that his touch would release the evil wizard again.
openNo Title Literature
I read a Fantasy book about a half elf women with her fiance named Rory, Roddy, something like that. It was the second book in a trilogy. There was also a subplot about reliving past lives and a large three sided civil war. This book would have been written 20 or so years ago. I am just wondering if this sounds familiar to anyone. Thanks.
openNo Title Literature
IIRC, it was Sherlock Holmes, WITH ALIENS!! - only here, Holmes was the personal assassin of Queen Epiphany I. Any clues?...
openNo Title Literature
Looking for two works that serve as examples for Eyes Do Not Belong There.
1. Someone told me there's a Stephen King novel where surgery reveals an eyeball on the back of someone's brain. It's what's left of his identical twin, whose evil personality later surfaces. I've done some searches and it probably wasn't really by Stephen King.
2. A black and white horror movie where somebody (looks like Lon Chaney, Jr) grows an eyeball on his shoulder. A clip of it is shown in It Came From Hollywood.
openNo Title Literature
A book I started reading some time between 2nd and 5th grade about two brothers. Weather prediction of some sort was a family trait and I think only one of the brothers had it. They may have been raised by a grandfather? I remember them heading off to a Springfield and realizing they had predicted an event in the wrong one. I believe I read it sometime between 1995 and 1999.
Edited by northernspyopenNo Title Literature
I feel stupid for not remembering this, but only about a year ago I read a book aimed at younger readers that I actually remember a lot about, but not the name or character names. It took place during or right at the beginning of the Holocaust, I think it took place in Denmark, and it was about a ten year old girl who had blonde hair and so did her five year old sister, and they had an adult sister who had died at least a year before from a car crash or something, I think their dad didn't live with them. The ten year old's best friend was a Jewish girl with dark hair and they were trying to protect her. I remember a part where the five year old wished they could have cupcakes with pink frosting and sprinkles again. And a part where the Jewish girl had to pretend to be the other girls sister. And also the girls like lived in an apartment or something. Does anyone remember what this was called?
openNo Title Literature
I'm looking for a somewhat humorous science fantasy novel first published in the '80s. It has a painted cover with a woman blowing a bubble with pink bubblegum. I'd know it in a second if I saw it, but I can't remember the title or author.
It's about someone who becomes noncorporeal and contacts and/or possesses a woman, but he/she isn't literally a ghost. They're not dead, and the whole thing has some sort of sci-fi foundation.

I found this example in Pet Heir, and want to label it properly. Any idea what the book is called?
Another example from Trash-Can Band:
- This troper can't remember the title or author, but knows she once read a picture book about a family where the four kids go down to the junkyard and find a bunch of trash that they use to make instruments. Their father is a painter and wants them to be quiet so he can work, and the parents are also none too thrilled about them building drum sets out of the kitchenware.
Edited by ladyofprocrastination