Andria’s Comments (group member since Jul 03, 2012)

Andria’s comments from the What's the Name of That Book??? group.

You're welcome! Glad I could help. Your description made me think of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books, so I was searching those, when The Mitchells ended up in my results.

Possibly Choices by Kate Buckley? It's available on Nook and the plot seems to fit.

I think this may be The Mitchells: Five for Victory

"The Mitchells, by Hilda Van Stockum, is a story about five children, Joan, Patsy, Peter, Angela, and Timmy, who live during WWII. When their father goes to go fight in the navy, they create the “Five for Victory Club” that is supposed to help people who are in the midst of fighting. Then someone moves in next door, along with a mysterious refugee girl. The Mitchells become great friends with the refugee, a girl named Una. But can they help her find her parents?"

Pretty sure this is Captives In A Foreign Land. One of the kidnappers is "Mustapha"

Pretty sure this is Sweet Friday Island

You're welcome! Happy to help. This one comes up a lot. It has been looked for at least 20 times just in this group!

Possibly The Wind Singer

Possibly a long shot, but Anything But Typical is a middle-grade book frequently assigned in schools, about a boy with autism, and the first chapter talks about how he has difficulty reading expressions and telling people apart because they look alike to him. And this could be considered a "messy drawing"

Pretty sure this is Guyaholic. Some of the editions had pink covers.

Finding Mr. Right has a MC who is murdered and reincarnated as a Corgi. First in a series, lighthearted romance with a touch of mystery, I think?

Pretty sure this is Set in Stone.

Possibly Mates, Dates, and Great Escapes. One of the editions had a green cover:

Dear Blue Sky, maybe?

Kris, you just beat me to it. I'm pretty sure that's the one and I just re-read the ending to confirm. It was also published as The Hiding Place

Heloisa, there are things called "book-in-a-year day-to-day" calendars, that might be what you're looking for. I'd try searching those terms. Good luck!

What Happened to Lani Garver - link for Megan's suggestion

Leela, the Kirkus review for Seems Like This Road Goes On Forever mentions shoplifting, parents pushing her towards a certain college, and being in the hospital after an auto accident:

"Mary Alice's story is told in flashbacks as she lies in the hospital recovering from an auto accident and haltingly recalls for a psychotherapist the sequence of events and conditions that led (as we discover in the end) to her shoplifting a sweater and driving madly off on her disastrous ride. Mary Alice's father is a fundamentalist minister preoccupied with his calling, and her mother, cold and timid, is equally preoccupied with ""what people will think."" As her senior year in high school draws to a close, they are forcing her toward an evangelical religious college, and during her therapy sessions in the hospital she finds the courage to resist them. Mary Alice's parents are types, but they are a change from the usual middle-class suburbanites that prevail in teenage crack-up fiction; similarly, the pattern of self-discovery is unoriginal and unexciting, but at least Mary Alice is free of the shallow glibness of too many troubled heroines. "

Possibly Homeless Bird ?

A Place Called Here -- link to Nerina's suggestion

I'm pretty sure this is Sweetheart, Sweetheart

The Kirkus review: [contains spoilers] Sneaky, very sneaky. As history teacher David--an Englishman who's been living in Manhattan--begins his story, it seems that we're in for a neatly tugging mystery. David's twin brother Colin, recently married, has stopped corresponding, so David flies home--only to find that his father still hates him, both Colin and wife Helen are dead, and their charming, historic Gerrard Hill Cottage home now belongs to David. He moves in, determined to uncover the truth of those deaths: Helen died first (a roof-jump or push); was Colin's subsequent auto death someone's revenge for Helen ? But the mystery swirls into something more gothical when, after David's girlfriend Shelagh comes to stay, the appealingly bovine, devoted part-time housekeeper seems to be responsible for various hideous happenings: glass shards in Shelagh's ice cream, razor-blades in her face cream, her near-fatal horse accident, and the words "SEND HER AWAY" etched in the garden soil. And, sneakiest move of all, just when we're resigned to the housekeeper's guilt (she's so lovably pathetic), Taylor quietly shifts everything into ghost gear: the real culprit is Helen's ghost, David thinks, as he hears her laughing ("not the laughter I had heard in those movie blood-curdlers") and makes love to her in an erotic blur. He soon learns, however, that the rich history of the cottage offers far more likely candidates for ghostdom, and a harrowingly chaotic exorcism finale proves just how strong a love-struck ghost can be.