Frances Salomon Murphy

[vdansk]

I love the internet. I'd been thinking of a couple of books I'd read in grade school in the '70's, old scholastic editions from the 50's and 60's. I remembered the plots, and tons of details, but no title or author...then I remembered that one had been called "A Nickle for [Girl's Name]" before it was retitled something else by the edition I read when the cost of a phone call went up to a dime.

So, I typed in "A Nickle for" and then managed to come up with the name...Alice. And found the author and titles.

Both _Runaway Alice_ and the peripheral sequel, _Ready Made Family_, deal with foster care and adoption...fairly taboo subjects in the 50's. They are--at least in my memory--nearly perfect books, with real emotions and vivid characters. I still remember the dress made out of feedbags, and the teacher who helped a child finally learn 7 x 8 by revealing that her own age was 56.

So, did anybody else read these while growing up?

Comments

[xanath.livejournal.com]

Oh, my God. Way back in fourth or fifth grade, I read Runaway Alice. :D

[rantarn.livejournal.com]

I hadn't read those, but I have had similar situations with the internet where I've remembered only snippets of something I'd read or saw on TV many years ago and just googling those snippets revealed what they were. Examples are an old cartoon called Cool McCool that I watched when I was perhaps 3. I had only remembered that he was a secret agent, that one of his enemies was this evil jack in the box, and that his father (who had his own segment on the show) was a cop. Another example turned out to be the animated version of Oscar Wilde's "The Selfish Giant". I remembered most of the plot from that but nothing more.

I am *still* trying to find a TV show that was very Rankin/Bass in the animation and had sort of an Adam and Eve theme in at least the one scene I remember. The scene had two kids in it with one daring the other to eat this flower. The other finally gives in and upon doing so, the whole landscape changes to something dark and dreary.