Fiction_L Archives Stumper: Asylum escapee peers through window Dates: 1/30/04,10:00 AM  through  2/1/04,3:07 PM  (3 postings) Search for: Select one or more indexes to search: 2011-current     2009-2010     2004-2008    1995-2003    (Matches from each index will be displayed separately in the results page.) Return to January 2004 thread menu   |   Fiction_L Archives Menu

FROM: [removed]@aol.com
REC'D: 1/30/04, 10:00 AM

I have a patron looking for a children's book she read approximately forty
years ago (this stumper will be cross-posted to pubyac, childlit, and stumpers,
if necessary). She remembers that the illustrations featured people with
"pointy noses." The characters were in a two-story house, and traveled to
chautauguas in New York or Vermont. There was an escapee from an asylum who peered
through the windows into the house. One of the characters may have been named
Paige and one Joe-Po. One character grew up to be a writer for the New
Yorker. This sounded vaguely Elizabeth Enrightish to me, but no luck.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

Maggie Bollar
Children's Librarian
New Carlisle Public Library
111 E. Lake Avenue
New Carlisle, OH 45344
937.845.3601 (voice)
937.845.0908 (fax)
"It takes a long time to become young." - Picasso

FROM: "Carol Jackson" <[removed]@hotmail.com>
REC'D: 2/1/04, 3:07 PM

I believe this is Who Shook the Family Tree by Hildegarde Dolson, a
thoroughly charming memoir (fictionalized?) of growing up in Franklin,
Pennsylvania (and later, NYC). Looking through my battered and well-loved
Scholastic paperback from 1960 (c. 1941), I see that your patron was right
on with her assessment of the people illustrated as pointy-nosed. Anyway,
it's a hilarious book and actually showed up on the Fiction-L Laugh Out Loud
list compiled in 2000.

Here's a bit from a scene that takes place right after the one your patron
remembered:

"Just before midnight a policeman reported back to Father. They'd found the
man in the woods and he was already on his way back to the asylum. 'You
didn't handle him roughly, did you?' Mother asked. The policeman reassured
her. 'Ma'am,' he said, 'them attendants just gentled him into a strait
jacket and not a mean word.'"

Carol Jackson

*****
I have a patron looking for a children's book she read approximately
forty
years ago (this stumper will be cross-posted to pubyac, childlit, and
stumpers,
if necessary). She remembers that the illustrations featured people
with
"pointy noses." The characters were in a two-story house, and traveled
to
chautauguas in New York or Vermont. There was an escapee from an asylum
who peered
through the windows into the house. One of the characters may have been
named
Paige and one Joe-Po. One character grew up to be a writer for the New
Yorker. This sounded vaguely Elizabeth Enrightish to me, but no luck.

Thanks for any help you can offer!
*****

_________________________________________________________________
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FROM: "Carol Jackson" <[removed]@hotmail.com>
REC'D: 2/1/04, 3:07 PM

Clearly, that's WE Shook the Family Tree, not Who Shook the Family Tree.
Sorry!

Carol Jackson

_________________________________________________________________
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http://shopping.msn.com/softcontent/softcontent.aspx?scmId=1418

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