To ask you help me find this 80’s kids’s book

[Eeksteek]

I have very poor recollection of it, but it bugs the hell out of me!

Boy and a girl. Herefordshire or Welsh borders. Go out looking for mushrooms in the early morning and find patterns on the frost leading to….. something supernatural. In order to prevent discovery by persons un-remembered (presumably evil) they go out with hot towels and melt the frost to hide the pattern. The girl may have been called Jane, and there may have been dragons, but honestly any of it could be suspect after all this time, so hit me with anything close. I probably read it late eighties, so it’s likely a late seventies/early eighties release, as I only read library books.

Why it made such an impression when I remember so little if it, I don’t know. It pops into my head every couple of months, despite the fact that I can’t remember where I put my bank card on the regular! (It’s driving me crackers in a repetitive, low key sort of way, and I’m overwhelmed and having a shit time in real life, so escaping onto kids books is about as good as it gets just now!).

Oooh @PerrinAybara I think you've got it with the Tripods!! I could never figure out what it was because it was always a million results pointing to the day of the triffids. Thanks!!

@Playplayaway Could yours be one of the Emma series, by Honor Arundel?

This one is one of the Mr Amazing monster books. They're on my sleeping DC's shelf - but that should be enough for a Google :)

Ah, the days before teen fiction took off.
I'm sad my kids won't read any of the stuff I read, but it's so, so old for them now. And it's not on tiktok or you tube.

Anyone used to read Louise Lawrence?

I was obsessed with urn burial for a bit. Was it the cat aliens in that one?

Loved the Tamara Pierce ones.

Tripod trilogy was brilliant, but not enough female characters for me.

The one I've never found was one from the 80s. Def pre 90 cos I was in primary.
Set Australia. Bloke goes to some island and falls in love with a local girl. Think there are water sprites or fairies in the coral,or something. Very environmental message. Vague sense that Australian novels got the environmental stuff long before we did.

Libraries were shit though- you never got to read a whole series.

@TheLampIsLighted it's not that (it's the tripods) but that sounds completely terrifying based on the synopsis online. For some reason I could handle that kind of thing so much better as a teenager, now it gives me nightmares!!

Anyone remember the picture book called Henry's Quest set in a post-apocalyptic England where a young knight has to go out to find gasoline? Like Mad Max but aimed at young children!!

I also loved Tamora Pierce - have the Alanna books on kindle for comfort reading!

I wanted to be Alanna when I was about 11 or 12.

I was thinking of the Owl Service too, can't remember the details but has that atmosphere.

I can help with the monster though - it comes from the A.Mazing monster series including The Tricky Troggle, Wormball, The Great Gulper and Webfoot. I think Webfoot is the one you are thinking of.

Can I join in with mine, please?

A children's picture book from the 80s or early 90s with illustrations similar in style to Shirley Hughes. The story was about a girl who made a mess with purple powder paint. I think she made nose prints with it.

This could be My Sister Sif. Very much before it’s time with the environmental message and a heartbreaking book.

Just Googled and I think it might me. So odd how that one's been the one that got away all these years. Must have made quite an impression on me. Never found anyone else who recognised it though! 30 year mystery solved.

@TheMoth I read Louise Lawrence, Children of the Dust. Really remember that one, great book!

There is a book I have posted about before and have been searching for for years with no luck.
I read it in the library and it would have been in the 90's- after 1995.
It was one of those large, square thin picture books, but I think there was a story rather than just a few words on each page if that makes sense. There was a girl (Princess?) and there was something to do with doors or keys? I seem to remember her going through different doors and one was gold, one was silver etc and behind each door there was a different 'theme'.

It has haunted me for over 20 years!! I've tried searches of various keywords, I've lost hours searching for this book!

I'm going to jump on thread with one too!

Read in the mid 1980s. It might have been a book but for some reason in my mind it might have been a comic.
There was a young girl called Valerie who lived in a posh house. I think she either decided to swap places with a poor girl or somehow went to live in a poor family's house, and then her real family didn't believe it was her when she went back. Possibly set in Victorian times.
I loved reading this and have thought about it loads over the years. Wish I could find out what it was.

I read it in the 80s but it could be from the 70s. About a little girl that moves to a new block of flats. She makes friends with another girl in the block.

This could be nonsense but I remember her or them finding toffee wrappers and putting them on their noses. Going around saying toffee nose. Possibly had racism explained to them. The new girl might have been mixed race.

I'd like to find it and read it again and see what was really going on it compared to what I remember.

That was on the gcse spec for a while. I loved her Sci fi ones- warriors of taan, calling b for butterfly.... then a kind of supernatural one about a witch in Wales. I think that may have been inspired by Circe from Greek mythology, but can't remember now.

Then there was Lois lowry. American. I wasted hours trying to learn how to do astral projection, after reading one of her books.

No idea with any of these books but it did prompt me to search my favourite picture book 'Enchanted Tales from the Magic Mountain' (took me a while to figure out it was called that) I loved the images in it as a child.

Whilst all you book sleuths are out in force, I also have one! Sorry OP

I don't have many details to go on at all other than a children's book possibly from the early 90's and featured a boy who throws shoes at the moon!

@WildImaginings yours reminds me of The Tinder Box by Hans Christian Andersen.

The Moon's Revenge

@TheMoth I read Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence for GCSE back in the mid-90s. She is single-handedly responsible for my entrance into the world of dystopian fiction!

I bought the book in junior school it was in bbc
the tripods are coming
the tripods are coming
the tripods are coming
the tripods are here

i was besotted with the guy that played Will. In the book I’ve written in pencil “ I ❤️ John Shackley” 🤣🤣🤣

Ok I’ll add one

Fairy tale where the hero somehow gets a magical stone which is pure white and shaped like an egg.
I think he makes ever more extravagant wishes and then loses the stone

I have been looking on beaches for pure white egg shaped stones ever since

@Adultchildofelderlyparents Searching for Shona has a Shona and a Marjorie in it? I think the rich house is described as Victorian.

I do now remember reading this (I had actually forgotten about this one!) but I've just rechecked plot and illustrations and it's not this one.

Thanks for the suggestion though! Going to check other HCA fairytales in case I've missed one!