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!).

@WildImaginings Errol le cain is the version I remember best from a 1980s local authority library.

Our local state secondary school does make an effort with the library but sadly our local authority library children's section is not a patch on my GLC childhood children's library. (And I've googled photos so it's not a case of being small)
Libraries were so important. I miss the joy of reborrowing favourites and buying with limited funds, books for holiday reading.

So many memories bright back with these author names.

Nicholas fisk wrote that terrifying book about the slug things and the one with all the doors on the cover. Nowhere land? Nowhere girl?

@EilonwyWithRedGoldHair I read all those books😃

I do remember being frustrated that a lot of the books I read didn't give me satisfactory endings/plot directions, which I think, was good preparation for adult books. And life.

Cynthia Voight was another favourite.

Does anyone remember The Voyage of QV66 (Penelope Lively) and Space Demons (Imogen Rubinstein)?

I loved and still love Robert Westall. Most people know him from "The Machine Gunners", but "Blitzcat" is an extraordinary book.

I spent a happy time during lockdown, buying and rereading various titles of his. Some I had to get second hand because they're out of print, which seems a shame.

Sorry, not the point of this thread I know!

Hello please may I add my lost book here?

A young girl and a young prince get married in secret, the wedding ring is wooden? There is a frantic horseback gallop to safety, one protagonist is called Alys? Set in medieval times. Thank you!

I used to get westall and swindells mixed up. Think Westall had more range. And he was really good at proper, old fashioned ghost stories. Anyone ever read The Call? The mysterious phone call on afoggy night. It's a short story and v atmospheric.

There's a great resource here w1.loganberrybooks.com/stumpthebookseller/
It's American but quite often people post British books - I think British authors were writing sophisticated middle - grade fantasy before US authors were.

@TheMoth, I don’t think the book with all the doors on the covers was Nicolas Fisk. I think it was John Christopher, Empty World.

My favourite Nicolas Fisk was the very weird A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair.

And I loved Robert Westall’s Futuretrack 5, though some of its racial attitudes are… well, of its time.

Another fantastic book was The Seventh Raven by Peter Dickinson.

I swear that book is the reason I'm claustrophobic!

Yes Pinky - where the tunnel is flooded to the ceiling and they just have to go through and hope it isn't too far for their lungs !

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies

My favourite Nicolas Fisk was the very weird A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair.

Yes! I still remember that book so vividly. Especially when I eat marmite!

Such an uncompromising story for a kids/YA book.

On the Flip Side is another Fisk one that's seared in my memory.

@EilonwyWithRedGoldHair thank you!!!

I think Futuretrack 5 could have been my first dystopia.

I remember on the flip side. Lettice was a really unusual name.

But I thought the giant slugs were in the Lettice book. I think they were almost transparent and kind of shuffled.

Brother in the Land by Robert Swindell. Back before they have it a happy ending.

Loved Robert Westall though, some really creepy horror stories, and I loved Cats of the Seroster. I think I must have read most of what he wrote.

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies And I loved Robert Westall’s Futuretrack 5, though some of its racial attitudes are… well, of its time.

Really? I loved that book as well.

I can’t remember the story but I know frost and snow are involved- the snow spider by Jenny Nimmo?

Loved Voyage of QV66- totally forgot about it until you reminded me- thanks @DuaneDibbley

Don't recognize Space Demons, but love The Voyage of QV66; and other Penelope Lively books, especially The Revenge of Samuel Stokes and The Ghost of Thomas Kempe,

I think this is 'A Parcel of Patterns' by Jill Paton Walsh. Seriously scary.

Yes! That's it! The cover gave me the shivers straight away, going to see if I can order it and then only read it in broad daylight surrounded by my entire family!

Could you be amalgamating two different books? Part of your description - the mediaeval setting; the heroine called Alys; the escapes on horseback- sounds very much like Barbara Leonie Picard's 'Ransom for a Knight'; but I don't think it included a prince or a wedding.

A Parcel of Patterns - Gill Walsh

@minipie - ahhh, Ray Bradbury - my favourite short story is A Sound of Thunder. We did it at school and I still think about it 35+ years later. The end is chilling.

I think this might be 'Maddigan's Quest' by Margaret Mahy.

It’s not that, or The Owl Service. I have read both multiple times and know them really well.