What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
This topic is about
Gom on Windy Mountain
SOLVED: Children's/YA
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SOLVED. YA Coming of Age novel. Boy discovers a Gold Nugget in river. He's a social outcast (bullied) living in the rural mountains, his treasures include a bug preserved in amber and a gold leaf skeleton. Read around 1997-2003. Spoilers.
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I haven't found this yet and I'd still be quite interested in tracking it down.
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I copied some book details to the topic header. Feel free to edit it.
The time period was medieval, the location I don't remember but I want to say it was European.
It wasn't a classic fairy tale, but possibly a reinterpretation of one.
Was the boy an orphan, or did he live with his family?Did he live in a village or outside of it?
Outside of the village in the mountains when he was young. There was a village down the valley.I don't think he was an orphan, but I want to say he had one parent or something like that.
Gom on Windy Mountain by Grace Chetwin? It's fantasy, and I know you haven't mentioned any fantasy elements, but you might have forgotten them - it does seem to match the other details, e.g. the cave with a river running through it, and the treasured skeleton leaf:He was just turning away, when he noticed something bright lying beneath a boulder close beside him. Kneeling, he gingerly removed dead grass and dirt and there, on the ground, was the skeleton of a leaf, a brilliant yellow leaf, its delicate ribs gleaming in the sunlight like a strange metal.
A golden loder leaf. A perfect skeleton.
There's a copy on archive.org here - https://archive.org/details/gomonwind...
After almost 10 years we did it! That's absolutely the book. Mark it as solved. That's awesome.
Oh, awesome news. Great find, Becca!
Mod
Gom on Windy Mountain (book 1 of the Gom series) by Grace Chetwin - Becca's find.
Amazing, glad I could help! In case it helps future solvers, the key to me finding this was that it was on casette tape, which really narrows the options down. I searched Worldcat for "kw:boy and kw:mountain" and filtered by "fiction", which gave over 5,000 results - but when I added the "format: audiobook on casette" filter, there were only 55 results to look through.
What's the Name of That Book???
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Gom on Windy Mountain (other topics)Gom on Windy Mountain (other topics)
It is a YA novel, coming of age story. I believe I listened to it on cassette from the library.
I remember the beginning and the end relatively well. The main character is a boy, pre-teen or teen. He is a social outcast and lives in the rural mountains. I remember specifically that he had treasures such as a bug preserved in amber and a gold leaf skeleton. At some point he discovers a nugget that turns out to be gold, but he doesn't like it particularly (the leaf is more beautiful and delicate).
Protagonist is bullied.
Near the end he is hiding in a cave with an underwater river. The main antagonist of the book comes up to the mouth of the cave. I believe the antagonist's horse had 3 black hooves and 1 white. The antagonist is after him because he believes the boy knows where to obtain more gold. The antagonist tries to swim up the underwater river and he gets stuck and drowns.
Thank you in advance!