I remember taking home a book from school when I was about 6 (1995-1996). It was meant for slightly older kids so I struggled to read it and needed my mum's help. About halfway through she became concerned the story was too dark for me and returned it to the library though I can't remember much about it.

I'm sure it had a picture of a black cat on the front which is why I chose it in the first place; I was very into Meg and Mog at the time. I think the cat may have been sitting or walking in an alleyway at night? The background was black or dark blue.

The story was about a child (can't remember whether male or female) and a talking cat. The cat may have been a pet but could have been feral. Thinking about it, there might have been two cats; an adult and a kitten.
There may have been witches or ghosts, but I was also into Sabrina the Teenage Witch at this time so I might have mixed them together a bit.

All I can really recall is that it was a little unsettling or mysterious, that there was some kind of adventure, and my frustration at not being proficient enough to read it by myself. It might not have actually been that dark as my mum was very strict about what I was allowed to read so if there's a book which lines up but isn't "scary" please suggest it anyway!

I'm from the UK so it was probably British but could have been from another English-speaking country or a translation.

I had a little look through previous posts here in case somebody else had asked about it, but none of them rang any bells.

EDIT:
Okay I just searched through this sub again and skimmed probably 30 or more posts related to kids' books about cats and I think I've found it. Apparently there was a series of books for beginner readers in the UK called Tim and the Hidden People. The name definitely sounds familiar and the style of the covers matches what I remember, though no specific cover. This one does have a black cat on the front though. It's possible I mixed up a few books in my mind since it was so long ago as Grimbold's other World also looks familiar, and I was also a fan of the Puddle Lane series, some of which feature black cats and alleyways. The books don't look dark or scary at all but just the phrase "hidden people" may have been enough to spook my mum and prompt her to return it.

Putting this here in case anybody's curious or tries searching this sub for the same series in future:

• They were published in the 70s and 80s
• For young readers aged 8 to 9
• Boy befriends a talking black cat called Tobias who has a son called Sebastian
• They go on adventures
• Some mystery and very mild suspense

I'm still not 100% convinced it's the right book, especially since the inside illustrations don't match what I remember, but I'm going to mark this as solved anyway.

Thanks for the suggestions, everybody! I've got a big list of books for my niece and nephews now!

EDIT NUMBER 2: My brother finally got back to me and though apparently we did both read the 'Hidden People' books I found this wasn't it! Without me even mentioning the cover he described it as featuring "a large black cat facing the viewer, with a dark night sky. It looked creepy." Apparently the story was so dark my mum actually complained to the school for letting me take it home, and there was a "gruesome death" in it as well witches and some kind of spirits. My brother's 6 years older than me so he remembers it more clearly. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if I mixed up the book I took home with the 'Hidden People' books though, since the other details line up too well.

So although I marked this as solved (I don't think I can change that now?) I'm still taking suggestions hahaha 😭

SOLVED! At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson

Forgive me for the lack of details, I haven’t thought of this book since I was in high school. It was from my high school library, a YA novel that was age-appropriate.

I am going to be referring to the protagonist as X. I believe it all started with X’s partner, or maybe a crush. They disappear entirely and X is the only one who remembers that they existed at all. I remember X being convinced that they must be crazy, until it happens again to someone else. Slowly, over the course of the story, more and more people disappear both physically and from everyone's memory, except X‘s. IIRC buildings and man-made structures started disappearing too. I believe X tried to stop it but was unable to even identify why it was happening, I’m a little foggy on the exact details there. But I’m quite confident that it ends with X all alone, watching powerlessly as whole cities vanish, awaiting their own inescapable demise.

It was a long book and I remember it being extremely emotionally gripping. It’s the last book I truly lost myself in before the internet took over my life. Now, I’m trying to escape the digital age and return to a simpler time lol. I think finding this book will really help, so thank you to all who offer answers ♡

Edit to add: The more I think about it I want to say the title has the word everything in it, but of course memory is fickle. Also, I am very confident that the book is not a sequel of any kind. I believe it was a stand-alone title but could have been the first of a series.

So I read this book when I was younger and it left such an impact on me but I can't remember the name. I remember it started when the girl was like a teenager, and it showed her bad home life (i think she had a step-parent), where they'd not let her go to the bathroom before school etc.

I know a plot was she met a boy in a trailer park and began to fall in love or something similar, and she ended up burning the family home with her family inside. The book flickered between her POV as a teenager and her as an adult in prison where its revealed shes on death row. I'm p sure the book ended with her execution. There was a nice old lady in the prison too who went for her execution earlier in the book.

I may sound insane but I vaguely remember the book and it legit altered my chemistry I'd love to be able to read it again now I'm older.

but the main characters live forever the ml is Scottish can't remember why he lives forever and the girl is a witch notable feature is she had laser hair removal all over which was noted in a chapter where they were doing "things" I may be getting some details wrong I have a terrible memory but I know they bantered a lot like enemies to lovers and they had to help each other for some reason Ive been looking to reread this but an old friend let me borrow it in ninth grade to 'teach' me and Google can't help with so little info also it's crazy how many Scottish witch stories there are that are not this one thanks in advanced!

The book is about a girl named Isabella and her older brother who is training to be a knight in a fantasy world where dragons exist and I think their father is dead or not around or missing. They have a mom in the first few chapters I think. In the book there's a scene where her brother yells her name like this.

"ISA-BEL-LAAA"

Or something like that. I did a book report on it back in 5th grade. I'm 21 now and I've been trying to find out the damn book title for ages now.

If I remember correctly the brother had brown hair and Isabella was blonde and I think their age gap was like 7 and 10 or something like that.

I can't remember the name of the book, but it was a hardcover book, and the design was of someone in a cloak hitting a wall of ice with a hammer. The entire design was ice minus book details and the person hitting the ice. I believe it was something like Skyfall, but that's not it. This girl was living in this hall, and she was something like a princess to the king of the north, and she lived in this hall with her older sister and maid. I think there was also a brother. It was wartime because a previous soldier of the king wanted to marry the older sister. They had 2 cows and a goat, and a slave named something like thrall. Later on, some barbarians came to join them, about 50. They had to hunt, and she eventually got a crow with a broken leg as a present, and she kept it in her room. She also saw a wolf in the sky and found a cellar or a cave. Later, the goat died, and all the soldiers ate it, but the girl, her sister, brother, and maid didn't eat it, and it ended up being poisoned by the slave. Then the soldier who had wanted to marry the older sister came with an army, and the girl hid with the maid and family in the cellar while the barbarians and the soldiers fought poorly due to the poison. Then the one barbarian who was the captain went into a rage, ready to die, and the girl came out of the cellar to save him, and the guy captured her and took over the hall. That's all I remember as I didn't finish the book, and I hope to.

So I'm trying to track down a book I had as a kid.

It's about a cat visiting all of the different houses along a street and eating a different meal at each one. It definitely isn't Six Dinner Sid despite the obvious similarities.

The book I had was warmer in tone, the cat was ginger, and all of the people on the street knew the cat was visiting each of them.

This would have been written some time before the mid-90s and came from the UK. The story and illustrations very English.

EDIT: Solved! In case anybody's curious, it's called Catwalk. I thankfully did not completely imagine it.

She is living with her brother and mother. Her father died. Her brother goes off to fight in the military to bring home money. It is just her and her mom. She is alone most of the time because her mom does not take care of her. A man approaches her as she is getting groceries and says he is a friend of her brothers and says her brother has died. Her brother and her have a great connection and bond over their love of big books. He kidnapped her and she finds out that is a lie. She ends up hiding these books in places and she is taken with this man who kidnaps her. She escapes from him by running into a train and then hides out in an older woman's yard and paint ladybugs on the woman's hens house thing. The woman's grandson finds the girl. They form a romantic relationship. Her brother comes and finds her and it turns out he is not dead.

I just found an old picture of a “8: The Word Tries To Die” page with a rather creative list of ways to die, in a rudimentary “me want to” style. I have no clue what book it could be, but I picture is time stamped July 2015 and i think i had just read Dr. Bird’s advice for sad poets before this one. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

HELP LOOKING FOR A BOOK

I remember that when I was in high school, there was a book that I borrowed from the library. I think that it was for a reading challenge which wasn't a great idea since it was such a massive book. Here is the thing. I borrowed it because the cover really intrigued me at the time and it still is on my mind even though I cannot even remember what it was about.

I mustn't have gotten very far. What I remember about the cover that there was a giant building that may have been green and if I recall correctly, the sky was orange. It was a science fiction story. A family friend showed me "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and it is possible, but I don't think that it is because I recall the building being on the right hand side and much closer up.

I can’t find this by googling but it was one of my favourites as a kid.

This island is the home of Tamandua (which is his name but also a kind of anteater, I have learned as an adult) and his friends. I think they’re all anteaters or maybe they’re all animals but no humans anyway. One day a mysterious egg appears- it’s huge and the anteaters all play on it and it’s really fun (they don’t know it’s an egg) anyway a dinosaur / dragon creature eventually hatches from the egg but I can’t remember any aggro, it just flies away at the end I think.

I grew up in the UK if that helps

SO. I read this book in like 2022-ish. I don't remember what it was called. The cover had some designs on it, it was like an orange-yellow-brown smokey(?) look.

The book was a novel that I got in my middle school library, in Florida. It was fairly small in volume. It only had like 100-ish pages, I think. It started with a teenage (I think) girl opening the door and it's the police, and at first she's like, "Oh I bet my brother got into some trouble again," (because her brother was like an active gang member or something?) but then the police reveal her brother has died. The girl decided to like look more into her brothers death and finds a bar he (and his gang I think) used to frequent at. She starts hanging out there despite being underage and meets a bartender boy who's about the same age as her. I don't remember his name but they all called him some short nickname like "Kip" or something like that. might be completely off on that guess. We find out he's working there bc his uncle(?) owns the bar. And his uncle is not happy that the girl is showing up, because her brother is trouble. Though she still occasionally sneaks in to hang out with the boy her age, though he is advised to stay away from her. She continues to try and figure out more about her brother and his death. And when she finally gets a lead, she goes to see the bartender boy, just to find out, he has died. I think he had been killed? I'm pretty sure that's where the book ended. Someone help me. I've been looking for years.

Read a book in 7th grade where all of a sudden people stop responding or even acknowledging the main character. There was some kind of “upgrade” to humanity turning them from analog to digital creatures.

The first part is this guy driving a taxi, fantasizing about the last time he saw his very young daughter, on the drive home from an amusement park. A passenger sees a ticket from the park and comments on it. It's revealed that they never actually got to the park because his wife (maybe girlfriend) and the daughter both died on the way there. I don't remember much until it switches to a different woman's perspective, she falls in love with a movie director, she steals a fancy spoon but they end up having a meet cute over the spoon stealing. they get married have kids, but eventually their expensive home is broken into. The mother locks her child into a closet and tells them to never come out or make noise. The robbers eventually pin her down and torture her with knives. The father gets intensely over protective and at one point locks the wife into their bedroom with a one way lock, once he comes back the wife tries to cut herself with a fire poker. In the end, the two different POVs meet and the ending is pretty positive.... also i think there was this super sheltered girl at the beginning who was never allowed to leave home who ends up meeting the taxi driver, most likely the daughter of the movie director.

I was in 3rd grade and I remember my class read a book about some alien characters (can’t remember the plot) but i remember it was the first book I was on the edge of my seat.

All I remember there were 2 characters named “Zimmol” and “Feck” (no idea the spelling or if that’s right just remember those names, 30 years!) I wish I remembered more about the plot. I feel like one of the characters was evil and hunting the other one which is why it was a triller to an 8 year old.

I’ve tried googling those names but never found anything.

They were young in the book and the younger sister is deceived as being braver harder to break etc. they were chained outside in one scene and stripping a chicken carcass of all its meat in another but at the end it's revealed there is no sister she made her up to cope with the abuse I can't remember the book title for anything and it's stuck with me for years

It was a fairly short book with a couple others in the same series. There wasn't really a plot, it was just one of those middle school slice of life type of books, kind of like in the same genre as The Cupcake Diaries or The Babysitter's Club. Here's some stuff that I remember happened in it:

• MC girl gets set up for a prank and ends up involuntarily splashing their strict science teacher with soda, due to a sort of "prank initiation" for becoming popular.
• There's the classic group of three mean popular girls that the mc initially hangs out with. One of their dads works with the mc's dad, and that girl is closest to the mc out of the three popular girls
  • That girl (the one the mc is closest to out of the three) likes a boy, but is disapproved by her other friends because they're the same height, meaning that she would be taller than him if she ever wore any sort of heel. There's a school dance later on (possibly the next book), and she goes with him, and the mc thinks they look good together, even if she is a little taller.
• There's another side character who's sporty, has short hair, and rides a skateboard, and becomes the mc's main friend. She used to be best friends with one of the mean popular girls (the leader). During a sleepover in the past, the mean girl cut off all of the sporty girl's long hair as a prank, which is why they're no longer friends.
• MC gets a cell phone thanks to one of the popular girls with a pre-paid payment plan, her older brother complains about it and their mom said that if he can find a way to get a phone without needing their parents to pay for it then he could get one too

I read this book in highschool or middle school. The main character is from the 1800s who is being raised by her father. She meets a man who sends for her and she embarks on a journey to find him only to find out he has married a native woman. She also seems to have a love for apple pies.

I have a vague memory of reading a book where a family with 2 sons moves to a house or cabin near the woods, as the boys go exploring they encounter weird things. I cannot remember much else but i do remember one of them lost their eye, the cover of the book was even an eye with stitches or something of the sort. Sorry if it is vague but i read this more than 10 years ago, thank you.

2nd book of the trilogy where boy can see ghosts and a new girl moves to town, she moves into a family by using a spell and her sister is in a coma. In ghost form the sister has an arm cut of and at the end of the book ( or the 3rd one) the girl has the sister's spirt inside her.

They are in high school. The boy's best friend is a girl ( I think they kiss though not sure) the best friend smokes. he can see ghosts and can enter ghost form ( Something like that).

I think the 3rd book is about making sure the after-world does not spill into the real world, something about swans/ doves. The main character goes into the spirit world and completes a journey.

The author may be a boy and published before 2018. It is YA I may have got the 2nd and 3rd book mixed up. Any suggestions would be appreciated as I may have some details mixed up

Thank you!

Child/Tween age range, I read it around 2007-2009. Authors last name between C or T as I can vaguely recall and I don't know if I'm combining two separate books into one.

A young girl is trapped in a tower, she cries diamond tears. A man comes often to collect them, maybe her uncle. Her hair is golden. She can control its length and at one point she manages to escape a room by walking in circles and creating a mound of hair to climb up to the ceiling. She escapes with a guy who becomes a love interest.

She might have had sisters who were turned into geese or swans, I want to say 11 sisters and at one point they form a thick "blanket" she can sit on and they fly her some place. She's chastied by her love interest for slapping one of them. At the end of the book her sisters are turned back to normal and one of them teases her about stealing the guy.

I read this book in 2019, the condition was pretty worn though, it didn't smell or anything, but the pages had that brownish color that books eventually get. The cover I remember was surprisingly simple, it was like a dark blue/indigo single-color cover with just the word "computer" or something but clearly not because I can't find it online.

The start of the book is like the kid somehow in a water-based facility, like a base or submarine in water, eventually the villain I think tells the kid or the kid finds out that the computers this guy was making basically have bombs or a virus that will kill or affect millions, kinda like the movie Kingsman (2014).

Some point later I know the kid crashes through the ceiling of a or the convention of when the computers were being revealed, that's all I remember.

Thanks for any help!

The title might have the word fox in it, but i can't say for certain. It's fiction, possible older like maybe even written as early as the 60's or 70's. It was partly a coming of age type story, the MC had a sister named Ruby. I don't think the OCD is the focal point of the story but it's a core element.

It's a long shot but if this sounds familiar let me know!

I’m trying to remember a book I read back in middle school. It’s about a family living in a rural area—there’s a dad, a sister, and (I think) two brothers. At some point in the story, a group of boys acts inappropriately toward the sister. In response, one of her brothers either beats up or kills one of those boys to protect her.

After that, he goes on the run because he might end up in jail. I don’t remember how it ends exactly, but I think the dad eventually gets remarried—though I know that part might be unrelated.

Greetings all, I’m hoping Reddit can help me find a favorite book that I’ve somehow lost track of, and whose existence I may soon start believing I hallucinated:

• the author is a woman
• it’s pretty old, from as long ago as the 1930s I believe, but possibly as old as 1913, that year is fixed in my memory

Had two bits that really stuck in my memory: - advised the writer to not tell their story to others before it was finished, asserting that the act of telling the story has the effect of feeling like you’ve told it, and thus diminishes your passion for actually writing it - noted that (paraphrasing) no one person owns all of the creative spark in the world, and no single person is completely devoid of creative spark

I would love your help in tracking this book down. Thank you! 🙏