How do you find a book if you don't remember the title or author, but know the storyline?

I believe the second is "Jennifer, Hecate, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth" by E. L. Konigsburg. It was a Newbery Honor Book in the early 1970s and I remember reading it many times, myself. Here's a link for more information: http://www.amazon.com/Jennifer-Macbeth-William-McK...

Since one of the books you asked about is a children's book, I would advise that you re-read "The Mirror" again before giving it to your daughter (assuming she is indeed young) because I think there is some adult matter in there, though I've never read it, just heard about it.

As for your actual question, where to post summaries of books to find out the title, there are lots of places to do that (and obviously you've discovered that Yahoo Answers works, too!) -- here are some that I've used:

http://forums.abebooks.com/abesleuthcom

http://www.loganberrybooks.com/stump.html

http://www.whatsthatbook.com/

http://www.librarything.com/groups/namethatbook

http://community.livejournal.com/whatwasthatbook/

http://www.auntbook.com/

Hope that helps!

The firs book is The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser. Link to Amazon is below.

I found it by typing Grandma Bran into google advanced search -exact phrase. If you have some discrete info on the second book, an unusual name, a quote, etc. you can try the same. There isn't any discrete info that I could search for. Good luck!

PS: I use the same technique to search for song titles and lyrics

If you remember a popular quote from the book you can try searching online. If you search with google and type in the quote or phrase inside quotation marks, it will search for exactly whatever is written in the quotations. Other things you can try is if you remember the character's name, try stuff like: "Jane Doe" book. That will search for that exact name and by putting book outside of the quotes with the search, it will prioritize websites with that name and relevant to books. So you might see some book club websites that you would then have to do some further digging. Be creative and use quotations!

I don't know of any such website (except for the one you're using...) but If you're sure about the story line you could ask a librarian that works in the childrens section, you may even find something better.

Perhaps you could try talking to her teacher, maybe she's heard of it.

You could look online at barnsandnoble.com and perhaps sifting through the summarys and book tytles you might run across them. If you think it's something less popular like another suggestion, google for less obvious book tytles.

Good luck-- I'm sure you'll find them.

Well, there is a site similar to Yahoo Answers that deals specifically with books that people can't remember titles or authors for. It might take you a little longer, and you may have to set up a free account, but it isn't a problem.

It's called www.whatsthatbook.com

You can probably just go to the website of your local library and do a search under "subject" or "keyword," or you can describe these books to the good people here at Y!A and see if anyone knows the titles of the books you're talking about.

Go to your search engine and type in a few words that you remember such as.....what novel is about a hidden garden?

Sometimes you can get answers.

Another thing you can put into the search engin is.....Children's novels.

Or perhaps your local library can help.

Not sure if there's a specific site that has that... however, this is a pretty large forum of folk here on Y!A - and people have asked & received answers on that exact same thing.

Abebooks has a Book Sleuth forum.

Also on Google, you search books by keywords, but I haven't had any luck with it.

You can try searching on Amazon by keywords, too.

Yeah, ask on here. perhaps someone will know the books you're referring to. Also if you can remember a quote or two, you could always google it and perhaps get lucky