Is there a magical website that helps you find books from your childhood?

[NigelWithTheBrie79]

I've tried googling details I remember for different books but no luck as of yet.

Sorry, Bazell not Lazell

It doesn’t really seem like a “mum” book though

This is a brilliant thread.

I have a few that I'd love to find. I'll try this one first.

It was about a young girl who had a birthmark in the shape of the island that her parents came from. She was an orphan who was being raised by nuns. Her parents were possibly explorers. I think there were 2 books in the series. I think the second involved her being kidnapped and there was a henchman called Wolfie, I think he was Australian, whom she befriended. TIA

@Doubleraspberry

Any chance it’s the Plague and I? That’s about TB but it’s hilarious.

The Plague and I is by Betty MacDonald and is indeed laugh out loud funny, as her other semi-autobiographical books. My parents had a copy of Onions in the Stew when I was a child, which I appropriated later on, and have re-read many times. I bought the others a few years ago and loved them. Worth a read even if it's not your Mum's book!

@Musmerian so many excellent books you mention there. I have all the Elfrida Vipont books, and Antonia Forest. Shame no one seems to read the Mantlemass series now. They are very good.

I have one I've been looking for for a long time, hopefully it'll ring a bell with someone.

It's about two women, one who leads a very stereotypical yummy mummy life: husband, two (?) kids, nice house. One day she receives a phone call from the mother of one of her former classmates, who doesn't know she's since married and calls her by her maiden name. It transpires the former classmate is at a hospital or mental health clinic, and the mother is calling in the hope the now married former friend might visit.
Former friend is reluctant to visit but eventually does, and over the course of the book it slowly emerges that there was a backstory of bullying at school, and that's why former classmate's mental health has declined.

I seem to remember one of the two ladies was called Helen or Hellen, although I'm not sure. Thank you in advance!

[quote MinnieJackson]@SittingOnAChair could yours have been the faraway tree by Enid Blyton?[/quote]
Thank you @minniejackson and @Peaseblossum22 for suggesting this but that's not it. I think I remember pictures so it may have been a book for younger children.

@SittingOnAChair could it be The Tree that Sat Down by Beverley Nichols?

Suelleker - yes yes yes - you're the best - thank you!!! I'd given up all hope! Just ordered it now to read again...

[quote midlifecrash]@SittingOnAChair could it be The Tree that Sat Down by Beverley Nichols?[/quote]
Sadly not, I think the rediscovered lemonade recipe was the main storyline. Thank you though

@midlifecrash Oh my God this is what I thought it was too but I didn’t know what it was called! I read this in primary school cough a number of years ago and I couldn’t ever find it again or remember the title, but I remembered the girl and her grandmother and Sam. This is the third book I’ve ordered thanks to this thread, £2.99 on kindle. Thank you!

Another big thank you for the recommendation of Book Sleuth! After years of wondering, I have just found Fu-dog by Rumer Godden. I loved that book.

@IWasFunBeforeMum - I had one similar about a detective. Will have a think about the name.

@IWasFunBeforeMum Inspector Smart was the one I was thinking of: here

@EdithGrantham are you thinking of Alfonso Bonzo? I loved that book but remember it getting quite dark!

[quote pangolina]@EdithGrantham are you thinking of Alfonso Bonzo? I loved that book but remember it getting quite dark![/quote]
Yes that's it! I've just looked it up and obviously I'd got some details muddled but that's definitely it, I can't remember how it ended, might be worth a reread!

Ive loved reading this thread back as it has thrown up so many happy and near forgotten memories of books from my childhood. I tried the websites mentioned to see if the book I first asked about appears but it doesn't. I must've been the only one to read it.

[quote ChessieFL]@MissyB1 as well as the Brownies series by Verily Anderson that a pp mentioned, there’s also a series of Brownie books by Pamela Sykes, so yours could be one of those.

I’m also looking for a book featuring Brownies, but mine’s not by either of those authors! In mine a girl called Laura moves and joins a Brownie pack. There are three Sixes and each Six has something special about their place in the hall where they have their meetings. One is by the furnace so it’s nice and warm, one is by the art cupboard so they have easy access to craft stuff. I think it may have been set in Tewkesbury (or Laura had just moved there from Tewkesbury). I would have read this in the late 80s or early 90s.[/quote]
@ChessieFL That has just brought so many memories flooding back! The three sixes with their special corner - and didn't they have to do something to gain entrance? I seem to remember one six had to blow down a pipe and it made a whistling sound!

No clue on the title though but will keep thinking! I loved all the Verily Anderson and Pamela Sykes Brownie books, too.

In the 90’s I had a book I loved, aged around 8 (same kind of book thickness as things like Mr Majeka). The girl baby sat a child, I believe a next door neighbour and some how tomatos came into the whole thing! I think the cover was quite a bright colour and either the girl or the baby (high chair age) had black hair

Picture book with writing ,about a witch who stole little girls .. and at the end their become her friends from the late 70s

Thanks BigOldBlue, I was starting to think I had made it up!!

@SydneyCarton I think that's it!! I can't believe you worked that out from my sparse recollection. Thanks so much

Can anyone help with this one? Read in 1985/86 , genre was children's or YA fantasy, it was possibly the first of a series, involving a girl who may have been a serving girl who was really a princess or who had a heroic destiny. She met some travelling companions along the way including a charismatic curly fair haired young bard/prince/mage.

Unfortunately my memories of it aren't very clear, other than it grew on me so that by the end I became really interested in the idea of "quest" type fiction. I have a feeling it was written by a woman but of course could be wrong.

Closest to Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. Not Earthsea. I thought perhaps Diana Wynn Jones but it is not Howl's Moving Castle - not terribly familiar with her others but a quick google hasn't helped.

I vividly remember the cover with a picture of the journey across the land with mountains and the brightly coloured medieval clothing of the characters.

Are ypu mixing it up with The Ordinary Princess by MM Kaye. Princess Amy runs away to live in forest and then gets job in castle of a king. She meets a young page and they spend days off building a house in the forest later he finds out she is a princess and she finds out he is the king.