Books where children try to save their family financially

[Rachel]

I'm trying to think of books where a family falls on hard times and the children start coming up with money-making schemes to try and save the family. The two examples I have in mind are:

I Capture the Castle - father is a struggling writer and his children do various things to try and improve the family fortunes

The Story of the Treasure Seekers - the family business fails, and the children try to find other ways of making money

Can anyone suggest more books with a similar plot, especially if they are from around the same era - late 19th or early 20th century?

[Tammy]

Patricia Beatty wrote several books with that kind of plot and in that era. One I remember is By Crumbs, It's Mine about a teenage girl and her siblings running a boarding house. By Crumbs, It's Mine!

[Rachel]

Thanks Tammy!

[Pamela]

Ballet Shoes and Theater Shoes by Noel Streatfeild are something like this. The children go into show business, although it's not their idea. Ballet Shoes Theater Shoes

Peddler's Summer by Jane Flory has a girl demonstrating a sewing machine to help her family financially. I don't remember if it's her idea. Peddler's Summer

[Hillary]

Depending on your age range of children, the later Little House books - Laura goes to work in Little Town on the Prairie and even before then there are plot lines of earning money, saving money, saving for Mary to go to college, etc.

[SamSpayedPI]

Little Women

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Katie John to some extent (she comes up with a scheme to save their house).

A Billion for Boris (sequel to Freaky Friday, so the money-making scheme is somewhat magical)

[Pamela]

The Ark by Margot Benary-Isbert features two teenagers getting jobs on a farm to help support their refugee family in West Germany just after World War II. The Ark

[Christiana]

There's an element of this in Leslie Connor's Crunch. Their parents are away and they have to run the family business alone during a fuel crisis.

[Ann aka Iftcan]

House at the Corner is a great one. Making it even better--the 3 children that aren't viewed as "anything special" are the ones who do the most to help the family out of their crisis. The two older children, who everyone views as great, smart, attractive etc are actually more than a bit of screw-ups. I have always loved this book because of that. (Can we tell which lot I belonged with?)

[Rosa]

In A Job for Jenny Archer, Jenny thinks her family is poor and decides to get a job to buy nice things for her parents so they don't feel bad about it.

[Keith]

The Breadwinner (recently adapted into a film) is about a girl in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan who disguises herself as a boy in order to be able to buy food for her mother, sister and little brother after her father is arrested, and also earn money.

[Rachel]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Forgot about Jo selling her hair in Little Women. Her only beauty!

[SamSpayedPI]

Rachel wrote: "Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Forgot about Jo selling her hair in Little Women. Her only beauty!"

She's also trying to sell her stories throughout the book.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Germinal in the sense that nearly the whole family works, except the youngest children.

[Ann]

Ramona and Her Father
Where the Red Fern Grows
Summer of the Monkeys
Switcharound

[Rainbowheart]

No Fixed Address
How to Steal a Dog

[Rainbowheart]

I'm Ok
Full of Beans
Johnny Swanson
Josie to the Rescue
Canned and Crushed
Death by Toilet Paper
Isaiah Dunn Is My Hero
The Fresh New Face of Griselda

[Andrea]

Sally's Family

[Rainbowheart]

Hidden in the Fog