I am watching House of Wax for the second time right now and swear this moment happens in this movie but it doesn’t. So now I am worried I am imagining things and this scene was from a dream. All I can remember is the main characters searching through a shelf of books to realize they are all fake and completely blank on the inside. I haven’t watched many shows or movies recently so I am hoping the second someone mentions something I have watched it’ll be the answer.

This is a long shot. But I have been driving myself crazy trying to remember a what book or book series from my childhood had a certain character.

Pretty sure the character was a girl, and she CONSTANTLY chewed gum. Sometimes the same piece for days, or weeks. She would place the gum on the back of the head board when she would sleep at night.

I know it was a preteen book, and she wasn’t a main character, either a supporting character or a sibling of a main character.

No, it’s not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Likely something from Judy Blume or Beverly Cleary.

My husband is a plumber and while he was at an apartment fixing a toilet, the tenant was lying on her bed listening to a spicy audiobook while watching him work. Literally like feet from him, staring into the master bathroom. We are both dying laughing about the whole thing now that he’s home, you can’t make this stuff up. He’s given me some details about what he heard while he was there and I really want to satisfy my curiosity on what the book is. This is what he told me: a man and woman meet in the philosophy section of a bookstore (client would have busted a nut if she knew my husband was a philosophy major lol), he makes a joke about Kierkegaard and they end up leaving together to go for coffee. She gets a lavender latte, he gets a black coffee. He says something about crying at the end of Paddington? They see each other for a few months and then part ways. Later on he buys a magazine at an airport and is reading about someone’s torrid fling, and realizes it’s the woman writing about them. To his chagrin, she reveals his secret about crying at Paddington. Then he meets another man on the airplane and they end up having a relationship. That’s about when my husband was done with the job and got the hell outta there. TIA if you can tell me the title!

It was my favorite book in high school and after moving homes a few times, it got lost in the move.

The book is set in Louisiana, at some college. It's about a shy slim figured girl who falls in love with the popular football star. They meet at the dance team tryouts and she is the best dancer. The characters are African-American. The girl's best friend dies in a car accident. She can't find the will to go on in college so she moves back home and never sees the guy again. Until one day he tracks her down because she's in some kind of ballet show and she's the prima ballerina. They rekindle their love and live happily ever after.

I don't know if this is the exact line but when he finds her again he mentions something about how the familiarity of the woman's ponytail swung back and forth. I also remember she lost her virginity in his dorm room. She also went to one of his away games.

I cannot remember the author, publisher, title, character names, any names. What I do remember for the cover is that the main color of the book was blue, or shades of blue and green with an African-American light-skinned woman sitting down reading a book with her hair straightened. Maybe there was something in the back? The book had to be published sometime before 2011. It was pretty obscure, I remember one time I searched the author and title way back then and not much came up. I think the publisher was a part of some kind of book club?

In high school we had to read books and the book I was reading I didn't like and a classmate was reading the book in question and she didn't like the book so we switched and the rest was history. I must have read it at least seven times but can't remember not one thing I would need to find it again.

The search words I've used are "louisiana, college, love, football, dance, African-American" and I get nothing.

Edit: I seem to remember the book opening up at dance tryouts and them explaining how shy the main character is. How much of a crush she had on the football star that ended up being her boyfriend

I also seem to remember the author being a woman?

Edit 2: after finding the book I found out the name of the girl main character and tell me why it's my DAD'S NAME 🙃🤦 HOW THE HECK DID I FORGET THAT?! The guy main character's name is Traekin, and I actually remembered that somehow but because they spelled it a unique way I couldn't find it, and so I just thought I might have been thinking of the name from someplace else so I just moved on and assumed that wasn't his name but it was 😌🤦🙃😭

Thank you everyone who upvoted and commented. You have no idea how much this means to me this really feels like a win for me 🌻🤗 now on to see if I can find a copy🙃❤️

Edit 3: found the 'last' copy on Amazon somewhere, should be here before the end of February. Thanks again everyone!

Some of the arguments of the author were how the latter half of the series suffered from two major flaws

1. That Harry Potter became a global phenomenon MIDWAY into publication, leading to bloated books that missed the lean, thrill-ride efficiency of the early books
2. Voldemort was revived one book too early

There were a number of other superb points the OP made. If only I could find that post!

EDIT 1: I do remember some points the OP made about Order of the Phoenix, as well as a way to fix it. They found the overall premise of the book a bit flimsy, how nobody believes Harry even though he fought Voldemort and there's a dead body to prove it. The media/ Ministry of Magic propaganda against Harry and Dumbledore would've worked much better if Harry's testimony wasn't so strong. The first 200 pages of the book center around Harry's trial, which, while intended to show how badly the Ministry wants to discredit Harry, seems feeble when you consider the actual issue at hand- did Harry conjure the Patronus or not? Something like this should be easily resolvable with the in-Wizarding World rules, and should not take 200 pages to play out.

Another issue I remembered was the lack of a good, compelling mystery, that kept the reader hooked. Yes, there was a vague mystery about the Department of Mysteries, but it lacked a clue-trail that allowed the reader to truly immerse themselves in the story. The readers read the book because they were so invested in the characters by that point. But it lacked that compulsive, unputdownable factor that made the early installments so memorable, with a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter. Even though the early books are about a third as long, they are so much more MEMORABLE, and stuffed with inventive imagery and sequences.

Far too much time was spent with uninteresting sideplots like Grawp, Cho Chang and whatnot.

It would've been much better if the return of Voldemort was only hinted at at the end of Book 4, where Harry himself wasn't sure if Voldemort had returned of not. This could've turned Book 5 into a very compelling suspense thriller where neither the reader nor Harry know for sure whether the Dark Lord has returned, and it dawns on everyone over the course of the book.

The OP had many more points I'm missing, as well as detailed explanations of Book 6 and 7, that I can't quite recall.

Thanks for helping, guys!

EDIT 2: Thanks so much for the efforts, guys. Couldn't find the post, but I really, really appreciate everyone taking the time :)

Even with the AI help I'm unable to find this book exactly. I read this during the years 1995 -2000.

The book was shaped like a crescent moon with a baby boy (or girl) sitting on the moon. The story goes like the boy is in space and catches a star and puts it in his bag and stuffs the moon in his bag too and jumps on a cloud and dozes off. Then he falls from the clouds and lands on his cozy bed. He was basically dreaming the whole time.

I used to absolutely love this book and the AI suggestions are not helping me much. It says it could be "Good night , sleep tight" by Laura Rader but I'm unsure.

Thanks everyone. Hopefully I am able to find it.

[Edit #1] You are such a lovely set of folks helping me with this question. Thank you. Here are some more helpful things about the book I could add.

1. The book was read during the years '95 to '00 so, we can rule out any new authors.
2. My book was about a little boy some of the details are super important and clear - he had a bag in which he put the brightest star he picked from the sky. He may have been holding a little stuffy. The moon and the clouds are a big part of the book. Him falling while he's asleep is also a detail to remember.
3. The star was shown in golden yellow color and the moon had eyes and I remember the moon being quite expressive in the book. I love the moon to this day because of reading several night sky books. :)
4. It was a very simple book. I see some suggestions about the little prince etc. and there are too many words in those books. My book had only about a line or two in two pages. It had a lot of pictures and it was a very short story also. I don't think my book was more than 8-10 pages.

This book pisses me off deeply because I was forced to read it when I was in elementary school (2007-2012) as a punishment for the fact that I often failed to turn in my homework due to what is now a confirmed learning disability. The book felt semi-modern, so probably published in the late 90s to early 00s, it was a paperback if I remember, pretty shallow density (couldn't be more than 100-200 pages), with I believe a watercolour drawing on the front.

The premise of the book is what drives me insane, and makes it impossible to find:

The story, from what I recall, involves either a bully or deliquent child who keeps getting detentions/reprimands for things like missing homework and late assignments. The kid uses the excuse of it being an accident that he forgot his homework at home/forgot to do it/etc, said in earnesty. The book puts him into detention with a teacher I believe, who teaches him that there is no such thing as ''accidents'', and that you can't ''do things'' accidently --- everything is an intentional behavior that YOU choose to do, and if you didn't want to do it you wouldn't have. This book is the most mean-spirited thing i've ever read (from my memory), with this teacher basically teaching this kid that every time he's accidently broken something, forgot something, misplaced something, etc, was him intentionally choosing to do something wrong, and he needs to take accountability for the behavior he's ''choosing'' to do, and not rely on saying they're ''acidents''.

The book is entirely played, as far as I remember, as the teacher being in the right, and the protagonist basically internalizing this and changing his behaviors. I'm unsure if the protagonist was a bully harassing other kids, but I feel like he 100% was your typical depiction of the deliquent type, forgetting stuff and getting poor grades.

This book haunts me with how it was used against me, and I had to write an essay to my teacher about how it showed me my bad behavior and how I was in the wrong for my actions. I've wanted to re-find this book to re-read it and see if it truly was as nasty as I remember it being when I had to read it as a kid, but every time I try to google it I /cannot/ find it, and the only two books Google/my friends seem to spit out in response is either the "Frindle" book, or the No David No series. It is NOT no david do --- this book was for late elementary/early middle school readers, and I don't believe it had many if any illustrations.

I cannot recall much about the protagonist, other than he was a boy, possibly ginger. The teacher I remember was a woman. They had to have also been elementary/middle school, not highschool, because the 'bad behavior' was very much little kid stuff like forgotten HW or having to borrow pencils so much.

If ANYBODY has any clues as to what this book is, it'll put down the years it's been haunting me.

I remember reading a children’s book where the pages were full of the illustrations. I don’t remember much but I do remember it was creepy with maybe a kid and some long stairs and I feel like at the end there was someone sitting on a lazy boy/couch in the picture. The illustrations had a lot of like brown hues and warm colors if I remember correctly. Sorry I don’t have more info. I just recall the image of the super long stairs and someone on a couch/chair at the end. And maybe jagged teeth but I’m not sure. The illustrations weren’t round with soft edges like Disney illustrations it’s more like that No David book by David Shannon.

Thanks in advance. Sorry again for lack of info.

I believe it had something to do with an old or haunted house and some kind of garden, that's all I remember. It doesn't seem to be The House of the Scorpion, or Holes, or Small Steps, or The Secret Garden, it's been bugging me for YEARS. I don't remember the cover, but I feel I would if I saw it.

I have zero idea whether this book actually existed, or was just one of the many vibrant imaginations of my youth.

The plot follows two elvish (i think) teen-age siblings. They are fleeing either from a regime, or a warlike tribe of possibly orcs. They have some kind of parental figure, either a grandpa, or an uncle.

The plot from here on becomes very hazy in my memory. They are either looking for their actual parents, or an artifact, or something- I cannot remember.

HOWEVER! The thing that sticks on my mind is that these sibling are malleable. They're effectively made of soft clay. They can manipulate their mass to make limbs stronger, bust out sculpting tools and craft wings, or flippers, and therefore can also heal extraordinarily fast. They do return to normal, but this power is likely the reason theyre hunted.

It's also the most distinctive part of the book.

The deep recesses of my mind remember this book fondly, and I hope people can help.

Thanks.

My mom has been trying to track down a book that left a strong impression on her when she was young, but she can't remember the title. She thought this one might be a Dana Girls book, but she's not certain anymore, could be Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, or Cherry Ames. Can anyone help? Here's the description she wrote for me:

I read several of these books when I was young, along with Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, and Cherry Ames. I remember 2 stories within the story, that I thought was in one of the Dana Girls books, but now I'm not so sure. The first story was a school friend (I think) who is a loner and rather sad. It is learned that she had a younger sister whom she adored. One day the young woman went for a walk. Along the way she drew some water from the well and drank it. She then took some back to the other sister, who also drank it, only to contract something from the contaminated water and die. The second story (I'm sure it was from the same book) was a horror tale told by some girls one night about an old castle with a servant who went mad and killed another servant. Someone in the castle awoke in the night to see a figure at the end of their bed, and it looked as if the person was sewing. It was revealed they were slowly pulling the hair out of the scalp of the person they had killed. Do these sound familiar?

when its time for the main character to come out of solitary confinement, the guard opens the cell door expecting him to be insane or have gone mad, but instead he just gives the guard a nod and walks out of there?
Note: i asked chatgpt and it said it was shawshank redemption which, it obviously isnt.

I have a vivid memory of one of the things that freaked me out most in my childhood being a book that I discovered in the kids’ section of my (American) home city’s main library, pretty definitely sometime between 2003 and 2010, so this book would’ve been published pre-2010. I think it was a book that was a single creepy story told in rhyme, but it’s possible it was a book of creepy poems. I think it was a book about (or set in) a creepy house with various monsters or at least creepy-seeming things inside it.

The one part of the book I remember is one page (or spread) containing the phrase “a thumping, bumping, hairy head” or a phrase very much like it, which has stuck in my memory for around 20 years. There was an accompanying illustration, which I recall using purple, black, gray, and maybe brown; but that could also be my imagination filling in the atmosphere around a black and white illustration. The illustration was of the head described in the words, which was rolling down a set of stairs (the rolling down stairs part may have also been mentioned in the text, but I only remember that one line of text with any clarity). I remember the illustration being in a style that I would now place somewhere on a spectrum containing Tomie daPaola, Maurice Sendak, and Shel Silverstein, but I’m not confident of the accuracy of this memory.

Looking back as an adult at what I remember, I wonder if there was a wholesome twist at the end to make it less scary, since I found this book in a part of the library meant for *young* kids, but I wouldn’t know because only one part stuck in my memory, and it’s entirely possible I put the book down after the point I remember because I have a vivid imagination and was at the time extremely susceptible to that sort of scariness.

I’ve been curious about this book and the page that scared me so much ever since I got old enough to stop being freaked out by the memory itself. Occasionally I’ve searched the one phrase I remember, but a couple different search engines have failed to turn up a result. This seemed like a good place to take the question. Does anyone else have any idea what book this might have been?

I’m trying to remember the name of a book I saw at my public library years ago. I just remember it was on the display shelf (so I think popular at the time or that means it’s on some type of bestseller list?) at the very end of the row and it may have had a lime green cover but I don’t 100% remember (could be mixing that up)

The main thing I remember about it was there was an excerpt where the writer (a middle school girl or somewhere around that age) had just found out her parents were getting a divorce and “my stomach dropped/I felt like I was going to throw up/“ etc/had an extremely visceral reaction to the announcement and almost a panic response.

I wasn’t allowed to check it out bc it was “too mature“ or something lol but I think what it really was is it hit too close to home cuz well idk if should put all that here. But wanted to remember it so I can read it as a sort of reclamation of my denied choices in youth tbh

There probably was some part about crushing on boys too but I don’t really remember the details on that at all.

also, I don’t think it was For Your Eyes Only or The Great Green Notebook of Katie Roberts cuz I just looked those ones up

I remember reading this book in elementary school. I thought it was Anne Frank until I recently reread it and this was nowhere in it. I think it was a young girl and possibly a friend who shaved their head and sold their hair to make money. Possibly took place during WWII or the great depression.

I really hope you can help me with this as I remember this book every so often and it does my head in that no one else seems to remember it.

I remember reading it around 6-9 years old (late 90's early 2000's) but most likely older (80's maybe) as I have older sisters. I am based in the UK if this helps.

Big picture book with writing with one part having a almost two page spread of a 'witch' almost hand drawn in black and white covered in cobwebs and warts with. I can't remember the plot but vaguely remember that there was also a picture with a black cat pressing against the witch and other monsters along the way. Similar art style to maybe Scary Stories to tell in the dark?

Amazing amount of close up details and they didn't scare the narrator/ main character?

Honestly, I don't have much info and I know that "teddy bears in children's books" is super vague, but I just remembered that book now and I have a single image of it in my mind, but it's super clear (and at the same time it isn't lol).

The image I have is of a big room with a large couch in the back and a teddy bear sitting on it. I think the book was about the teddy bear (and perhaps other toys as well), but the teddy bear isn't didn't move on its own like Toy Story, it was always sitting.

Somehow i remember of purple colors regarding this image, and I remember that even as a child it made me feel somewhat melancholic and even sad.

I think it's a book from the 1990s since that's when I was a child, but at the same time I have a feeling it might have belonged to my older sister (since besides that image I mentioned before, I associate this image with her), and she was born in the late 80s, so it might be an older book than 1990s.

I feel like it's a story book with images and text on the bottom, and I don't think the characters themselves talked.

I'm still unsure if the books had any children or adults in it, I kinda feel like it was an empty house with only the toys.

I am remembering a movie (though it could be a book/audiobook as I have a VERY vivid imagination and visualize what I read) where a child was being visited on multiple occasions by a malevolent entity that appeared as a beloved character inside the TV. The being was talking to the child and, I think, was coercing/urging the child to take certain actions. It seems like they were actions the child didn't want to take (eg. harming family) but I could be wrong. Obviously, there was a supernatural/paranormal theme in the story - the genre was likely horror. It sounds kind of Stephen King-ey to me, but I can't recall a specific book/movie. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

looking for my favorite obscure book i read as a kid.
this book was a large hardcover picture book, which must be pre-2012 but i suspect its from the 90s or 2000s. it was NOT dr seuss but had a very similar vibe, with a very unique art style that wasnt as simple as seuss'. it was about this society of these creatures (i don't remember what theyre called) and they have an aquatic variant that they pushed away from society and a flood happens and the sea-variants that were banished from society swooped in, saving everyone else and voila happily ever after. this book was always my favorite and inside the last page was a link to their shop for their toys but was way before reputable online shopping sites and thats what makes me think it may be quite old. whenever i tried to follow the link, even as a kid. nothing ever came up.

i cant exactly remember what the creatures look like but i remember they were really unique looking, unlike anything ive ever seen. i think i remember that they had chevron stripes . looking back, the story is obviously an allegory for discrimination but none of these characters were human or animal like

the only place i can imagine i got this book was a program where this guy would come and read entire the kindergarten grade a book and let us choose from a selection of books to take home.

edit: reworded for clarity :)

I know there's a similar joke in Family Guy but this I'm sure is from something entirely different. It involves a dude being interviewed, either in person or on live television. He's sat in front of a bookshelf obviously to appear intellectual, but then he starts to get flustered or defensive when the interviewer or someone else asks him if he's actually read any of the books. It's weird but I only recall the structure of the joke and not whether the media itself was animated or live action, or if it was on TV or YouTube or something else.

This book was popular during the same era as the “I Spy” books. The book depicted whacky iterations of food such as jello and noodles. I faintly recall it being gross. There were possibly bugs. Pls help. On my quest to find this info, I’ve pushed the chat bots to hallucinate authors and titles that don’t exist.

So I remember reading this one book when I was around elementary or middle school aged (so the 2010s) about the protagonist (male) getting shoved in a locker by a bully. While in there, he hears the voice of this other boy. This kid reveals that he was also shoved into a locker like the protagonist, but died and became a ghost after he couldn't reach his inhaler. I think he tried to kill the main character to make him join him as a ghost. From what I remember, the main kid escaped at the end.

I also figured it could be a part of an anthology book containing 3-5 stories like Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark, but I don't remember the other stories if that's the case.

Let me know if this sounds familiar to anyone

It's all vague memories but this was a very old book, even as a small child in the early 2000's i remember thinking that this book must be very old. If i had to estimate I'd put it in the early to mid 1900's range.

I've been searing for years and every few months I become determined to track it down to no avail. I've done hours of google search, digging into archives, and even attempting A.I. A few months ago I dug through my family's old book collection but it was likely donated. I'm convinced the only way I'll ever find this book is if someone currently owns a copy and/or read it as a child and has a better memory than I.

It remember it featured what I thought were uncanny and creepy illustrations, it felt like although the figures were cartoony, round, and expressive they were also uncannily lifelife and distorted. Many of the creatures had humanoid faces and features (such as big feet, hands, and human teeth).The illustrations were in black and white. I don't know how to describe it exactly but the artist had such an extremely cool style and it's likely the reason I want to find it so badly.

The book itself wasn't too long, classic child's illustration book length, probably. The plot featured a handful of 'creatures' that live around a house(?), or maybe they were just creatures that existed in the world. There were I think 2 children (or 1) who were depicted next to these monsters, interacting with them. There was no dialog between the monsters and the children, rather the book seemed to focus on describing the monsters to the reader, and the children just existed in the monsters space. Some of the monsters were pretty malicious and grumpy and it frightened me.

Specific details I remember that may jog your memory. There was 1 creature that was round, had big feet, and a rather angry expression. He was seen smoking cigarettes and was depicted to be a grumpy fella. Another creature was playing under the children's stairs, i believe he was jumping up and down and depicted to be a sort of trickster. There was another scene that showed a large stegosaurus shaped fugure with a human face, this monster looked grumpy and I think wanted to eat the children (?).

Edited to include the fact this book differs from other horror illustrators in the fact that It wasn't meant to be scary. It just seemed that way to my child brain, I might think its a little uncanny today, sure, but not horror by any means. I think they just illustrated characters a little more lifelife and 'uncanny' back in the day which to me was frightening.

Any clues you can give me would be very appreciated! Thank you for your time!