Girl Who Had No Name

by Berniece Rabe

As she travels from sister to sister in search of a home after the death of their mother, a twelve-year-old country girl discovers many things about herself and her family including why she was never given a name at birth.

Genres: Fiction

149 pages, Hardcover

First published June 3, 1977

About the author

While growing up in a large sharecropping family in Missouri during the Depression, Berniece Rabe Tryand practiced telling stories to herself. When she was 40, a teacher at Elgin Community College inspired her to use those storytelling skills to become an author, leading her to write 17 books, several of which won awards.

Ms. Tryand’s 1978 book “The Orphans” (Dutton Juvenile) won the Society of Midland Authors award for best children’s nonfiction. Ms. Tryand, who wrote under the name Berniece Rabe, also was nominated five times for the American Library Association’s Newbery Medal and won the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ Golden Kite award, the National Children’s Choice Award and two Best of the Decade awards.

Ms. Tryand met her first husband, Walter Henry Rabe, in Panama during World War II while she was modeling a line of fashions and he was in the Army. They were married in 1946 and organized the first Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregation in Elgin. Walter Rabe died in 2005 after a 59-year-marriage, and Ms. Tryand married James Tryand of Plano in 2009.

She is survived by James Tryand; her three sons Alan, Brian and Clay Rabe; her daughter Dara Rabe Sandland; 10 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.

Reviews

[Debbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This woman was a friend and an early mentor. I decided to buy all of her books and read them in sequence. What an interesting experience! I love her style--clear and age-appropriate, but she doesn't "talk down" to anyone. Those that echo her childhood are captivating. Those that speak to children in her life are tender. All have funny moments, real conflicts, and resolution. It was like talking to her again. Thank you, Berniece.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was another book I read when I was young. Though I only read it once, and found it randomly, I think, during summer reading, I've always remembered it, so was excited to find a copy at the library booksale. I didn't remember at all, though, that it was set in southeast Missouri or that it was historical fiction! So far, it's not holding up, though I'm only about a third of the way in, so we'll see...

Now I'm done...it was okay...though I swear there was a whole other part about her finally getting a name that wasn't how it actually happened at all.

[Madge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book at a free book library. Didn't realize items rated juvenile nail I was a 1/4 of the way through. I enjoyed it and found it be a great 12-adult book. I also felt the characterizations of the family dynamics was very believable and easy to understand as an adult. Had never heard of this author as the book was written in 1977.

[Alana Arlequin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book that i think your students in upper grades will enjoy. It is a chapter book.

[Brandilynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book when I was little and spent years trying to remember the name! Loved it then, love it now :)

[Carolyn Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite books as a child. Took me awhile to find the name because I only remembered the girl was named Girlie and she lived with various sisters. So glad to have found and reread it!

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

read it as a child, don't remember it