r/Findabook

Looking for a Victorian-era children's story/novel I read as a child, possibly a short story within a larger collection.

The protagonist is an adult man who finds an object (I believe it was a gold plate or disc) near a stream or brook. After this discovery, small creatures (I thought of them as imps, but they may be described differently—some kind of miniature people) begin visiting him at his home. There is also a black mist??? involved at some point???

Eventually he befriends these small beings, and the story culminates in him travelling to or discovering the miniature town or settlement where they live.

There may have also been an element of memory loss or enchantment involved.

I was reading it alongside George MacDonald and Frances Hodgson Burnett, plus some other Victorian children's books, so the language and era felt consistent with that era, likely published somewhere between 1860 and 1910.

I don't know if it was a standalone novel, a novella, or a short story within a collection or annual.

The details are a bit murky to me, since I read this long ago as a child, but any help would be much appreciated!!!

hey everyone! i read a book many years ago that i can’t remember the name of that i absolutely loved. it was checked out at a school library that i graduated so i can’t exactly go back. any leads/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!! i know it’s a vague description, but it’s all i can remember now. i think the cover was mostly blue, with the main character on the front, partially in water. a common theme was cicadas, she talked about the sounds they made and how they only came out every so often. the book was about a girl who was into diving, i think she was really good at it. pretty early on she takes a dive and she ends up in a coma for a good couple years. while she’s in the coma her family changes completely, her younger sister was ignored by her parents and turned to an alternative lifestyle to cope with lack of attention (i want to say drinking and possibly recreational drug use?). eventually the girl wakes up from the coma and realizes her sister is no longer a good kid, her family kind of fell apart, and she has to move on with life. she meets a guy, and she really likes him. 🚨book ending ahead🚨 at the end she’s at a lake with the boy and she’s felt off for awhile. she goes into the lake and drowns, and that’s the end.

Back when I was in elementary school, around 20 years ago I read a book suggested by my school librarian. The problem is I can't remember the title. Or rather I sort of do, but Google voice recognition is trash or I'm simply not remembering correctly.

I do remember almost for certain that this books title begins with C, and its one word, the name of a girl, I think. A Latin American girl, again, I think.

What I remember of the plot is this girl travels around with a man she is forced to call "uncle" although he probably isn't IIRC. The man is a conman as the girl and the man fo to places and she begs for money to tell her and her (not actually) blind uncle. When this girl gets anything that belongs to her she always wraps them in her shawl like a notebook she receives in the story, again again, The girl and uncle eventually for one reason or another visit a fortune telling woman in the book and she tells the fortune of the uncle using seeds, asking in to pick them up in handfuls, not the try to pick them up in one handful all at once, he tries anyway. The girl is eventually asked, (I dont remember by who, not the uncle im pretty sure) where she's from and all she can remember is "san" the person replies with something like "that's not very helpful! San Jose? San Francisco?" At the end of the book I believe the girls parents/relatives are found and she gets to go home. I believe in America, but I can't remember exactly. I also think most of this story takes place in South America or Mexico most likely. As several characters use easily understandable Spanish at times. At one point in the story the girl is given a 100 bill (Pesos, I think) and the uncle says to "Give me the bill". But says the number in Spanish.

Thats... mostly all I remember about this book. Can anyone please help me find it?

I don't have too many details about this books since I read it back during grade school, but I'll update if I remember any more details.
It was a YA book about two teens who are either siblings or good friends, a boy and a girl, and one of the two finds some illegal tech that would sell for a lot or help them somehow. I think they wanted to repair it. The world was usually described as polluted and grimy, and they lived in the slums with one guardian. At one point in the book they're in some sort of facility trying to find a piece of tech(?) and are chased by the bad guys and have to hide to escape. I don't think I got very far into the book since I don't have any idea what happens after that chase scene, but I'm pretty sure it was part of a small series.

I saw a book on a video I was on my phone a while back and I guess I forgot to save it anywhere because I can’t find it and I don’t remember what it was called. All I remember is that the cover had some green squiggly monster on it with long sharp teeth and I think there was a house in the background. Completely understand if this is to little to go off of but any help would be greatly appreciated.

I really want to finish this book from Goodnovel but cannot find anything that lets me read it after chapter 5. It isn't worth paying for the app for just this one book. I tried searching Goodnovels and Crushread5blog but they are the same and I know books from Goodnovel are also usually on free sites. Can anyone please help me

So I read a book my freshman year (2019) that I’ve been trying to find for the longest time. It’s about this world where every child gets a power around the age of 14-16 I think? The main character thinks she doesn’t have a power. It starts off with a festival where all the kids take turn performing their powers on a stage. She’s tried for two years with no luck. When she goes to do her perform, I think she just dances? It eventually leads to where she’s trapped in a book and some other guy follows her into the book. She figures out her powers are actually the ability to change the colors of things. I may be wrong about the whole trapped in a book thing but this has been killing me lately.

I remember reading an excerpt of this book ( or maybe it was a short story ) for my English class in this program called StudySync back in middle school. Here’s what I remember:

It’s post-disaster on Earth, surviving humans are now split into tribes of mountain people and forest people and then there’s a forbidden city in which nobody may ever travel to for it contains secrets of the past. The main character, the grand-son of the mountain people’s tribe’s leader has been obedient and fought his urges to explore the forbidden city but he is curious and consistently asks his grandpa why is he not allowed to travel there.

Eventually, after much resistance, he sneaks away and into the forbidden city which there are ashes and ruins, it looks like some sort of bombing or nuclear disaster happened with crumbled buildings and debris everywhere. The main kid goes into one of these buildings and finds a skeleton of someone looking out the window and in a rocking chair, their last moments before disaster struck.

When he comes out of the ruins, he gains a whole new perspective of their past and what happened and feels sympathy for his ancestors despite what he was told about the city beforehand. He was always told that the city beyond the gates was dangerous and was similar to Hell but after exploring it and seeing it for himself, his mind awakens and he encourages others to start visiting the city too.

That’s all I remember but hopefully it’s enough to be able to help find it! It was just an excerpt I’m pretty sure so there wasn’t too much in the first place.

I’m trying to find a children’s book I had as a kid in the Philippines, likely published in the UK or Canada around 1995–2000.

Cover: Thin hardbound, white with a sky blue strip/banner at the top (possibly bottom too)

Content: Cartoonish illustrations, human characters (not animals). Each page has 4–6 panels, each panel with a short sentence or label.

Educational, possibly first words or ABC format, aimed at ages 5–10, not babies.

Most distinctive feature: At the end of the book there are multiple full 2-page illustrated scene spreads. I remember a grocery store and a playground for sure, possibly others.

Art style feels closest to Usborne but I couldn’t find an exact match browsing their catalog.

Not very thick. Hardbound.

Any help appreciated, this has been bothering me for years! :)

So I want to read his book but I dont want to contribute ANY money towards him. I find it hard to read from my phone screen, and harder again on my laptop.

I was wondering if anyone knows where I can either buy the book secondhand (money only goes back to a random individual who once had this book)? Or perhaps an A4-printing-friendly PDF version? That way I can read from a physical page and maybe even use my screen reader too (ADHD + dyslexia combo means visual + audio is needed sometimes).

I'm interested in true crime. I know he tells horrid stories of his past in that book. I'm going down the rabbit hole and it is dark. I wanna read the words he wrote so plainly all those years ago, I want to see if he is twisting stories to make himself seem less awful, I want to see who even edited that book and allowed it to go to print.

If it comes to it, I will just not buy his book if buying a new copy is the most reliable way to get my hands on it, and put my curiosities to bed. Thank you for any help!

Can you recommend me some classical/good books that have recipes in the narrative? A friend of mine wants to reproduce/cook recipes that appear in good and famous books.

I believe this is a book in a series. I know in one book a woman hired a man to escort her to a will reading in which she has to lose 20 pounds to inherit and she ends up marrying the man she hired. Another of the books takes place with a romance cover male model who says he "lourves the libraries" and is murdered. There is also a very dramatic, older housekeeper who I believe has a fondness for heavy make up like purple lipstick but I'm not sure about the lipstick color. There mysteries, there funny, and I believe they take place in England. I would love to reread this and Google is useless. Thanks in advance!