Searching for a YA book about fortune tellers/gypsies?
October 3, 2014 10:46 PM Subscribe
Finally, my first askme! I dressed up as this character for Halloween when I was a kid, but for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of the book she was from or basically anything else about her, or the book really for that matter.
This is all I remember about the book, and I apologize because it's super sparse and possibly not even all correct. I've been googling variations of what I remember for hours and nothing even remotely close has come up, I'm not even sure how to describe it properly so here is what I think I remember:
- It involved a smalltown type kid befriending a gypsy kid from a band of gypsies coming through town. It may have involved a traveling circus act?
- I think it may have been set in the American south.
- Pretty sure I remember the cover art accurately since that is what I based my costume on: it features the gypsy girl dancing or doing something, there may have been hardwood floors and smoke involved, while the smalltown kid who befriended her spied in the background.
- In the cover art the gypsy girl was wearing some kind of cream color shirt, a headscarf, a dark blue vest and and dark red skirt. I think that she had a triangle tattoo either on her ankle or her cheek.
- The smalltown kid learns fortune telling and other magical things from the gyspy girl. Other smalltown people in the book are not cool with this at all.
- The gyspy camp that the gypsy girl is with gets driven out of the small town, or just up and leaves super mysteriously.
- Pretty sure the story was told from the point of view of the smalltown girl who befriended the gypsy girl, and she a had a lot of revelations about life because of their friendship.
And here is what I know (or at least think I know):
- Pretty sure it was a young adult book, probably bought from a used book store (if that helps, used book stores were my jam back then).
- I'm in my mid-thirties, and pretty sure I read this when I was still in elementary school, probably right before middle school. So the book would have to have been written by at least the mid-1980's.
That's all I've got. Save for the picture of me dressed up as this character for Halloween, which in my rose-colored memory would be super helpful because I recall thinking that I totally nailed the look for the girl in the cover art. But that pic is buried somewhere in my parent's house thousands of miles away so if you remember this for me I would be eternally thankful because of all the books I remember reading around that time that I can still recall in great detail, this has sadly (very sadly) not been one of them.
This is all I remember about the book, and I apologize because it's super sparse and possibly not even all correct. I've been googling variations of what I remember for hours and nothing even remotely close has come up, I'm not even sure how to describe it properly so here is what I think I remember:
- It involved a smalltown type kid befriending a gypsy kid from a band of gypsies coming through town. It may have involved a traveling circus act?
- I think it may have been set in the American south.
- Pretty sure I remember the cover art accurately since that is what I based my costume on: it features the gypsy girl dancing or doing something, there may have been hardwood floors and smoke involved, while the smalltown kid who befriended her spied in the background.
- In the cover art the gypsy girl was wearing some kind of cream color shirt, a headscarf, a dark blue vest and and dark red skirt. I think that she had a triangle tattoo either on her ankle or her cheek.
- The smalltown kid learns fortune telling and other magical things from the gyspy girl. Other smalltown people in the book are not cool with this at all.
- The gyspy camp that the gypsy girl is with gets driven out of the small town, or just up and leaves super mysteriously.
- Pretty sure the story was told from the point of view of the smalltown girl who befriended the gypsy girl, and she a had a lot of revelations about life because of their friendship.
And here is what I know (or at least think I know):
- Pretty sure it was a young adult book, probably bought from a used book store (if that helps, used book stores were my jam back then).
- I'm in my mid-thirties, and pretty sure I read this when I was still in elementary school, probably right before middle school. So the book would have to have been written by at least the mid-1980's.
That's all I've got. Save for the picture of me dressed up as this character for Halloween, which in my rose-colored memory would be super helpful because I recall thinking that I totally nailed the look for the girl in the cover art. But that pic is buried somewhere in my parent's house thousands of miles away so if you remember this for me I would be eternally thankful because of all the books I remember reading around that time that I can still recall in great detail, this has sadly (very sadly) not been one of them.
Response by poster: Damn, how could I not remember that title?! But I am certain you are correct...the book synopsis is different from my memory but not too much. Same with the cover, when I saw it I thought "that's exactly it!" and then my brain started filling in all these little made up things from over the years.
Now to just find an ebook copy of it...probably better off hitting the used bookstores for this one.
posted by pandalicious at 11:10 PM on October 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
Now to just find an ebook copy of it...probably better off hitting the used bookstores for this one.
posted by pandalicious at 11:10 PM on October 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: If you can't wait to find it in person, there's plenty of copies for under a fiver on AbeBooks.
If you're not familiar with AbeBooks, I can vouch that it's a perfectly trustworthy marketplace for used booksellers, and I've never had an issue with anything purchased through them, which includes a looooooot of young adult novels I was nostalgic about and bought for $3.34 or whatever.
posted by Juliet Banana at 7:18 AM on October 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
If you're not familiar with AbeBooks, I can vouch that it's a perfectly trustworthy marketplace for used booksellers, and I've never had an issue with anything purchased through them, which includes a looooooot of young adult novels I was nostalgic about and bought for $3.34 or whatever.
posted by Juliet Banana at 7:18 AM on October 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Awesome, thanks for the tip! I'll definitely be ordering this today.
posted by pandalicious at 7:39 AM on October 4, 2014
posted by pandalicious at 7:39 AM on October 4, 2014
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posted by teremala at 10:55 PM on October 3, 2014