What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
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SOLVED: Children's/YA
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SOLVED. Kids book about an artificial human child adopted by widow who tries to teach him to be less perfect. [s]
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This could be it!!The movie is called Konrad and is available here!
http://www.amazon.com/Konrad-starring...
The book is out of print, but is by Christine Nostlinger.
Stina wrote: "This could be it!!The movie is called Konrad and is available here!
http://www.amazon.com/Konrad-starring......"
Yes, this is definitely it! Thank you so much!
It starts off with a woman who recieves a very large package in the mail, which contained a big metal can thing in which the artificial child was being stored. At that point he looked like a strange wrinkly thing, but he could speak and instructed her to pour some sort of powder over him, which turned him into a normal looking child.
The kid was a product of some sort of mega-corp and the woman assumes he was a surprise gift ordered by her late husband, which surprises her since he wasn't very romantic? She quickly grows attached to the kid, but since he's a product he's "programmed" to be overly perfect and polite, and she tries to encourage him to relax and not worry about being messy or getting into trouble.
There's a scene where the woman and the kid are tie-dying shirts and he gets some dye on his clothes and gets upset/apologizes about it, and she brushes it off and tells him they can be his play clothes now. (The woman was a bit of a hippy, iirc)
There are two major secondary characters: One is a male neighbor who isn't fond of regular messy kids and dislikes the woman's hippiness, and likes the kid's perfectness and encourages him to keep on being tidy and polite. There's also a little girl the kid makes friends with who's messier and more mischevious than him and I think was a bit of a tomboy. At one point he goes to a party, which I think is where he meets her, and there's raspberry jello served with spinach.
(view spoiler)[The climax of the book involves it turning out the kid was sent to the woman by mistake and that her late husband actually ordered a large box of pins or something like that. The company thus wants the woman to send the kid back, so they can deliver him to the married couple that actually ordered him.
The woman however doesn't want to give him up, so she and her male neighbor plan to go on the run with the kid. They get some of their things packed up but unfortunately, a representative of the company and the married couple show up at her residence before she can get out of there.
Fortunately the kid and his friend put on a huge show of being wild and naughty, throwing around raspberry jello and spinach, and after seeing that the married couple think he's been ruined and don't want him anymore. The representative and the couple leave, and the kid immediately drops the wild act and is a bit freaked out. There's a little conversation between him and his adoptive mom and the neighbor, which amounts to him being reassured that no, he doesn't have to act totally wild and no, he doesn't have to act totally perfect. (hide spoiler)]
Any information you can add to this (or advice on where to look) would be appreciated! I've tried googling the weird/specific information I have, but with no luck so far.