What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
► UNSOLVED: One specific book
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Short Stories from grade-school reading book(s)/ textbook. Boys (usually poor) facing trials: Boy on ranch waits for spurs via mail, gets lost in snowstorm. Poor boy falls asleep & boots get ruined on wood-burning stove. Read late 1970s/early 1980s.
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Were these stories from a grade school reader, like a language arts textbook?If so, were they all from the same textbook?
Hi Rainbowheart,Thank you for the reply! Yes, they were from our reading book. I can’t remember the”technical” name for the subject, but it was reading comprehension. I unfortunately am not positive if they were all from the same textbook. They all involve boys, usually poor, facing trials of some kind. So that leads me to guess that they **might** have all been from the same book with a section on those topics. But again, that’s just a guess. I kept my grade-school reading books for years, but, alas, lost them sometime in the late 1980s.
Cheers,
Rob
You don't by any chance remember the name of the reading series or the publisher?There were lots of them from that era. Macmillan, Scott Foresman, Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt Brace, Ginn and Company and so on.
Could be worth checking images for textbooks from those publishers on Google to see if you recognize your series.
Hi Rob, did you go to grade school in the US or someplace else?
Hi Rainbowheart — that’s a great idea! I’ll do some image searches for covers of reading books from those publishers. Hi Adele — I went to school in the U.S., in Indiana.
Cheers,
Rob
Is there any chance you read these on those SRA card things that so many schools in the US used in that time period? Something about the stories you mentioned reminded me of those.
Hi Adele,I'm not sure what the SRA cards are. But I'm sure that these were hardback books. Some of the covers in my image search look familiar.
Cheers,
Rob
Mod
Rob (OP) last posted in the group in October 2019. Moving to Abandoned folder.
Sorry, I meant that I'd post a new comment. I AM still looking for these stories. Thanks!
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I copied some book details to the topic header. Feel free to edit it.
Rob was there a particular publisher for the covers that seemed familiar?I can try to see what I can turn up!
Hi Rainbowheart! Thank you so much! I wish that I could remember the covers of the book or books, but they escape me. One might have been orange. LOL That’s not going to help, I know. I really appreciate your help here, but don’t spend too much time on it. I think it might be a lost cause. Cheers,
Rob
In one of them, a boy on a ranch goes to the mailbox because he’s waiting for a pair of spurs. They arrive, but a snowstorm worsens. He gets lost, but eventually finds a structure on the ranch to shelter in. He survives.
In another of them, a very poor boy falls asleep with his boots on a wood-burning stove, and ruins the boots.
In another, a boy and an older relative live in a city and are very poor. They put empty soup cans in the cupboard with the lids still attached, so that it looks like they have more food than they do when child services comes to check.
Lastly, a Mexican boy makes money at a market by pushing a human-powered carousel. He wants the money to buy a parrot. By the end of the day, he has enough money, but then he doesn’t get to ride on the carousel, because the market is closed. But the carousel owner admired the boy’s work ethic, so he pushes the carousel himself for the boy and his parrot.
These stories have stuck with me for probably 40 years in some instances. I’d love to read them as an adult, to see how they affect me now. Thank you!
Cheers,
Rob