And this my friends is why the internet ROCKS!

I read a book in the fourth grade. Actually, I read lots of books in the fourth grade, but this one was special. This one made me want to be a witch (which led to a fire-and-brimstone lecture that I can still recall in vivid detail, but never mind). I have been trying for years to find this book again. The trouble is, I couldn't remember the title. I only remembered that I had read it in the fourth grade, that it was available from the Scholastic Book Club (all my friends had it), and that the title was long, lots of names including the name of the school. It was about two girls who wanted to be witches, and when they first met one was sitting in a tree wearing shoes that were too big for her.

Sure, you wouldn't think that would be enough to ever track that book down. I've been looking through the children's shelves at used book stores for years for a long title that would click in my memory but never found it. I've tried internet searches. I've even tried paging through every children and YA book with witches in it listed in the Library of Congress (OK, I did that before I had kids, when I had more time on my hands). But I never found it.

Then last week Quin found a book that he only vaguely remembered from his younger days called Black and Blue Magic. He couldn't remember the title either, but he searched for "boy, wings, potion, not Harry Potter" and found a librarian's website where she mentioned it by title and author. So he has his book now, and Aidan is looking forward to reading it (it's just a little beyond him now but he is very clear he does NOT want it read to him. He wants to do it himself. COOL!).

So I decided it was time to try another look for my own book. I googled all the nouns I could think of (do you have any idea how many children's books have witches in them? A lot.) I wasn't having much luck with Google, but I did find a website called Loganberrybooks.com which seems to exist just to help people find books they read as children but can't remember the title of. You post a summary and a bunch of people (they seem to be booksellers and librarians) take guesses. I decided to page around for a bit before posting anything and - joy of joy - there was my book! It was a wrong guess for a different book, but I knew once the guesser described it (heck, I knew from the title) that was my book. And it's still in print!

So now I've ordered it, and in less than a week I'll be holding Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth by E. L. Konigsburg in my hands again for the first time in... more years than I care to count up just now. I hope it's as good as I remember.