omg. omg. No Coins, Please is absolutely 100% the book! i found an ebook preview with a table of contents and "The Power of Positive Parking" is one of the chapter titles. THANK YOU!
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 25 July 2020 14:10 (three years ago) link
reading the plot summary, it's a shame the book wasn't a bigger hit, feels like it coulda made a decent low-budget 80s teen comedy.
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 25 July 2020 14:12 (three years ago) link
Much earlier book, maybe from the 50s or 60s. Short, big text, but probably with "chapters" in some sense. Kids dress up in masks made from paper bags, with spears and other things made from household stuff. Book also includes instructions on how to make your own. It all has to do with some secret club that meets out in the woods or in the tall grass. Eventually it turns out that the kids' parents were also members of this gang as kids. Much merriment despite how creepy I may be making this sound. I think the groups are maybe called WOLF and DRAGON but I can't remember.― Doctor Casino, Saturday, October 31, 2009 7:12 AM bookmarkflaglink
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, October 31, 2009 7:12 AM bookmarkflaglink
all at once, as i was making coffee this morning, it came to me:
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogspot.com%2F-UO3MBOMxuCs%2FUjw9VymP5aI%2FAAAAAAAADAk%2F0w65PrJG5HU%2Fs1600%2Fsecrethideout.jpg&f=1&nofb=1
John Peterson, The Secret Hide-Out (1965)
― Doctor Casino, Thursday, 22 October 2020 13:05 (three years ago) link
I vaguely remember reading a book about a boy who is chased along a river by a man and they end up in a sort of cave (I think) . Quite disturbingly, the man forces the boy to eat some sort of tasteless grey clay? That's all I remember
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Tuesday, 18 May 2021 23:58 (two years ago) link
this is weirdly familiar! but i think your description might just be prompting my brain to fuse Z For Zachariah with the Hatchet sequel The River. hmm...
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 19 May 2021 13:44 (two years ago) link
I always like the vibe of threads like this. They're collections of half-remembered dreamlike fragments -- images and moods -- asking for resolution and mostly not finding it. Feels like you could collect the most evocative examples online into a found poetry thing or at least a twitter feed.
― vinq, Wednesday, 13 October 2021 10:57 (two years ago) link
Pretty sure this is a real memory and not a dream, in fact it might be a pretty well-known book: there was a radio station that was only on late at night, and there was some connection with lizard people I think? But not bad lizard people a la V or conspiracists, these were cool lizards. There’s a sense that the radio station was like a portal to another dimension.
― recovering internet addict/shitposter (viborg), Wednesday, 13 October 2021 11:10 (two years ago) link
I was just searching for another story on stackoverflow so I had a go with yours, I found this which mentions a radio and lizard people: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/46650/childrens-novel-about-a-boy-who-buys-a-device-from-an-old-man-and-travels-to-a - but the answer doesn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mendelsohn,_the_Boy_from_Mars - but this by the same author sounds closer: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63321.Lizard_Music
― ledge, Wednesday, 13 October 2021 11:27 (two years ago) link
The story I was searching for involved some kids who decide to take revenge on a bully, they turn up to his birthday party laden with presents which turn out to be empty; maybe they also try to scare him by putting their clothes on back to front and walking towards him backwards ?? sounds lame - anyway it ends inside an old empty warehouse or factory with him escaping through a door which then disappears, one of the other kids wonders where you go if you go through a door that isn't there. Early/mid 80s, probably a short story, probably extremely obscure.
― ledge, Wednesday, 13 October 2021 11:31 (two years ago) link
sounds wild, no idea but would love to know.
― I Am Fribbulus (Xax) (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 13 October 2021 11:35 (two years ago) link
(re: lizard music, the goodreads summary isn't that helpful but one of the reviews says this: But when he falls asleep in front of the TV one night, he awoke to the strangest thing. After the TV station goes off the air, his TV picks up this show of anthopomorphized lizards playing jazz music)
― ledge, Wednesday, 13 October 2021 11:51 (two years ago) link
Awesome job ledge, it was definitively Daniel Pinkwater now that I recall, and it must have been Lizard Music. But now that I think about it, maybe it wasn’t so “cool” after all. Maybe it was all part of their saurian scheme. Sorry I’ll stop. Heh.
― recovering internet addict/shitposter (viborg), Wednesday, 13 October 2021 12:00 (two years ago) link
Definitely Lizard Music, and they are cool lizards. It's a great book. Worth a re-read.
― Lily Dale, Wednesday, 13 October 2021 13:05 (two years ago) link
Yeah Lizard Music is great.
― Kim Kimberly, Wednesday, 13 October 2021 13:14 (two years ago) link