SOLVED. YA (Children's Chapter) Book Starring Children -- Key Feature: They had a trading economy and a shop where people traded things for other things, even adults in the community traded there. [s]

[Jen]

I read this book when I was in elementary school, which I matriculated in 1994, so nothing more modern than 1994 would apply. My memory says that it may be an Encyclopedia Brown book, but I haven't yet found the match for it. Nonetheless, it was the same kind of children's chapter book as an Encyclopedia Brown book would classify itself as.

As a plot feature there was a child who had a shack where she or he ran a direct-barter trading shop. The children would use this shop. The adults in the community would use this shop. Vague snippets of memory say that there may have been the word "junk" associated with the shop, although the trades always paid off well for the "customer". I recall the author remarking in the book that the shopkeeper child didn't always know why some new bauble had come in to their life, but it always had purpose in terms of another trade made.

I read One Red Paperclip: Or How an Ordinary Man Achieved His Dream with the Help of a Simple Office Supply and it reminded me so much of this book's trading economy that I desire to find the book again. I hope someone else out there can help.

[Kris]

Alvin's Swap Shop by Clifford B. Hicks? There are different cover images.

Sounds like a mystery: "While running a swap shop, a group of youngsters become involved in the mystery of a sunken ship."

Here's the description on Worldcat.org: "Alvin the Magnificent Brain opens a swap shop with only one black ant as his stock-in-trade. He expects business to flourish. What he does not expect is to have his shop turned into a hideout for a young fugitive from Scarface, a desperado after sunken treasure."

https://www.worldcat.org/advancedsearch > Keyword: trading shop | 1960-1994 ? | Juvenile | Fiction | Book | English

[Jen]

ZOMG! Yes! That's the book! Thank you! Now I can go tell the mods to mark this one solved.

THANK YOU!

[Kris]

You're welcome, Jen. Glad you found your book. Google searching didn't seem to help, so I used Worldcat.org which is good for finding old children's books.