Book Poll

[rachelmanija]

I want to check out some of the most incredibly obscure unread books on my shelves. In some cases (Alcock, Cameron, Cooney, Park) I got them because I liked other books by the same author. In other cases the answer seems to be "contains a cat or a horse." In other cases, I have no clue.

Please comment if you've ever read any of these!

Poll #29504

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 77

View Respondents

Which of these books should I read?

View Answers

Midsummer by Katherine Adams. New York kids move to their grandfather's Swedish castle.
22 (28.6%)

The Red-Eared Ghosts, by Vivien Alcock. A girl sees red-eared ghosts.
25 (32.5%)

Aria of the Sea, by Dia Calhoun. Fantasy novel about a teenage healer who wants to be a dancer.
20 (26.0%)

The Terrible Churnadryne, by Eleanor Cameron. Kids see a sea monster.
19 (24.7%)

The Terrible Descent, by Bruce Carter. Fighter pilots are shot down and fall to the center of the earth.
16 (20.8%)

Twenty Pageants Later, by Caroline Cooney. It's about beauty pageants.
17 (22.1%)

The Watching Eyes aka Winds of Time, by Barbara Corcoran. A girl finds a mysterious family.
14 (18.2%)

Fintan's Tower, by Catherine Fisher. A portal fantasy starts when a boy finds a book with his name on it.
14 (18.2%)

Swampfire, by Patricia Cecil Haas. A horse named Swampfire is a girl's only hope to escape a swamp that's on fire.
23 (29.9%)

John Diamond, by Leon Garfield. A historical mystery about a boy who learns his dead father was a crook.
16 (20.8%)

Just Plain Cat, by Nancy K. Robinson. A kid gets a cat.
14 (18.2%)

Callie's Castle, by Ruth Park. A girl bonds with her grandfather.
7 (9.1%)

Dancing to Danger, by Priscilla Hagon. Mystery set in a ballet school.
26 (33.8%)

Comments

[osprey_archer]

I have actually read two of these! It's been a long time for both of them, but IIRC I found Aria of the Sea annoying for reasons that are spoilers, and Twenty Pageants Later annoying because the summary promised Soviet ambassadors and then there's, like, ONE scene involving Soviet ambassadors in the whole book. How were the Soviet ambassadors supposed to tie in with the beauty pageants? I don't know and I guess maybe Cooney didn't either. (However, aside from this annoyance I don't remember it that well, so it's possible Twenty Pageants Later has fine qualities that are easily noticed by the reader who didn't go into the book laser-focused on the supposed Soviet aspect.)

Have not read the Alcock, but I'm in favor of more Alcock on general principles.

[ageorwizardry]

I think I have not read any of these, but your Swampfire description made me laugh so hard.

[cyphomandra]

I have read The Terrible Descent and liked it, but not as much as the author’s Speed Six!, which made me really want to be a vintage race car driver when I was twelve or so. I have also read the Leon Garfield but it doesn’t stand out much from the bunch of other GarfieldS that I read around the same time, and I always felt I should like his books more than I did.

I have not previously heard of that Ruth Park and am now v interested!

[kathmandu]

I read Twenty Pageants Later; I enjoyed it. It is mostly nice people and nice events, a humane and humanistic take from the point of view of a girl whose older sister has always been the pageanty one, and now has to participate in one herself, if I recall correctly. Told in deft storytelling brushstrokes, with a little bitter-sweetness.
If you have read and liked Camp Boy-Meets-Girl or The Girl Who Invented Romance (both also by Cooney), this is the same general style.

[sartorias]

Checked two out as a kid, all I remember is being turned off Garfield, and avoiding ever rechecking out the Churnadryne. (I'd loved the mushroom planet books when really small)

[lferion]

I read the Cameron (because I read everything by her) but remember nothing about it, not even atmosphere.

[black_bentley]

Obviously I picked the Horse Book, because I will always be a Horse Girl.

[glinda]

I haven’t read that particular Garfield, but I remember reading and enjoying a couple of his books at school (when I was about 10 or 11) so I’m curious about this one.

[wateroverstone]

I don't recall reading John Diamond but many years ago I read other Leon Garfields and they were mainly good reads.

[rainsometimes]

I believe I have read all of Leon Garfield's books except the one that was only Shakespeare retellings, although maybe there's another one I've missed somewhere. Most of them in Swedish translation, though, and "John Diamond" was one of them! If I recall correctly it fits well into his other works - plot-heavy, full of 18th-century London ambience, with twists and turns and a boy protagonist struggling to make sense of things and to survive.

I do not recognize the names or premises of any of the others!

[carbonel]

The only one of these I remember reading is The Terrible Churnadryne, back when I was reading everything I could find by Eleanor Cameron. It wasn't as good as The Court of the Stone Children, but few things are.

[ethelmay]

I read The Terrible Churnadryne and chiefly remember furious rage at the end. I think I might like it better now. I suspect there is a lot of northern California scenery that I would appreciate better.

[hippogriff13]

I was also really annoyed by the time I got to the end of "The Terrible Churnadryne." I don't recall the actual official conclusion of the book, although I'm pretty sure it was at least somewhat disappointing. But I was really infuriated by the belated--I suppose this is technically Spoilerish--revelation that the reason the heroine spent most of the book thinking that there was some sort of half-forgotten Nessie-ish legend about an occasionally-sighted dinosaur-type monster called the churnadryne on the local mountain was that at one point some cranky old lady spotted her, the heroine, stretched out on the grass and made some crack like "What are you doing all sprawled out like a churnadryne?" Much later, the heroine finds out that the woman in question has never even heard any old rumors about an alleged resident monster. (Neither have most or all of the local inhabitants, as I recall--it seems as if pretty much nobody but the heroine and her friend have ever seen or heard of it.) Ridiculously, what the old woman had actually said was "What are you doing all sprawled out like a churn a-dryin'?" Which doesn't even make sense.

[rachelmanija]

LOLOLOL what?!

[hippogriff13]

I know, right?

[ethelmay]

It does in a way - churns have to be cleaned and dried pretty carefully, and when possible you take the churn apart and put it in the sun.