To ask if you remember this VERY strange book from my childhood ...

[eatsleepread]

I'm mid-forties, and I've sometimes wondered about a book I read while at primary school. It really was weird. It's about a dark-haired young girl who lives in a tent with her family. Looking back, I think they were made out to be gypsies.
The girl discovered a tasty herb growing locally, or possibly some sort of salad leaf. She used to pick it and hide it under her duvet. When her father found out, he beat her.
I read it at lower primary, and it was a story/picture book, as opposed to a chapter book.
Reading my post, it makes me wonder how a book like this could ever have existed. But I'm not making it up!

Ooh, don’t remember that one 🤔 it did make me think of ‘The Indian in the cupboard’ for some reason. I was obsessed with that book.

@Doyoumind

Don't know the book or Kizzy but this thread has reminded me of a Rumer Godden book called Little Plum that I loved.

My mother bought Miss Happiness and Miss Flower for my half sister when they moved and she was missing her friends.

Because I always wanted to build the Japanese house that the back of the book held plans for, I spent a fortune on a secondhand book a few years back, only to find that it was the wrong edition and they'd taken the plans out.

Because I always wanted to build the Japanese house that the back of the book held plans for, I spent a fortune on a secondhand book a few years back, only to find that it was the wrong edition and they'd taken the plans out.

Gutting! I'm sure I still have my original with the plans. I always planned to make the house too. Let's do it!

Oh wow - l read Miss Happiness and Miss Flower! I had totally forgotton about it until l read that post ...

@Whatnext2018

Ooh, don’t remember that one 🤔 it did make me think of ‘The Indian in the cupboard’ for some reason. I was obsessed with that book.

Me too! The boy was called Omri, wasn’t he? I wonder where that came from?

Not remembering books is the most annoying thing - I read some anthony horrowitz style books in the nineties about kids living with awful carers like a mad aunt and eating frogs, the books were rubbish but I so want to read them again just to remember!

@ArgumentativeAardvaark I’m really not sure 😂It just seemed so exciting, the boy used to bring food up to him and smuggle it in. I’m Googling it tomorrow!

Was it Maggie and the Chickens by Jane Hollowood?

Maybe " Gypsy Girl ' by Olga Sinclair

As far as I remember the plot to the Maggie and the Chickens book is that the little girl, Maggie, steals some chickens for dinner, plucks them and hides the feathers in a mattress in her tent. She gets found out when her baby brother goes to play in the tent and gets covered in chicken feathers. I think her Dad beats her for stealing the chickens. I loved this book!

Sorry this plot doesn’t ring a bell with me, but there is a book that I read when I was a child, well maybe about 10 or 11 and it’s, like yours a very vague and strange memory, but I’ve been trying to find it for years. The whole book was set in a land which was like a giant bed and there were mountains made of pillows. I remember that I borrowed it from the library but no amount of googling finds it.

Genderwitched - was that the 99 dragons/last dragons- where the children fall asleep after counting sheep (the girl) dragons the boy - to go to sleep and end up in a world inhabited by the sheep and dragons?

which is the Rumor Godden one with Totty the doll in ?- where the nasty china doll comes to live in the dolls house?

@CrumpetyTea that ones 'Tottie, the story of a dolls house"
I adored it as a child.

Oh c apparently the original book was called A dolls House but renamed when they made a tv series of it. My copy of the book must be newer than the tv show then. Odd as I thought it was my mums originally!

I had a version of Rapunsel that was very like that.

If you're wondering why it existed when it talks about the father beating the child, then it's not really that surprising - it's only been probably 30 or 40 years since that has been publicly heavily frowned upon in the UK, and less than that in other countries.

Many children's books have at least allusions to cruelty to children, if not actual descriptions. Many children could associate with that, and if the child in the book won through against the abusive adults, then that would give them hope.

I'm glad someone seems to have worked out the name of the book for you - I've never heard of that one, sounds interesting. (I'm not a massive know all but I was a voracious reader as a child, still am!)

Not r
Heard of any of those books, but diddacoi... I thought that was an insult word?!

I'm a similar age as OP and this thread reminded me of a book we had to read in primary school - The Hobbyahs.

It was about an old couple and their doggy kippy ? I think. The poor dog had various limbs cut off to stop him barking when the hobbyahs came to try and kill the couple. Honestly the pictures in that book still give me nightmares now !! How this was deemed suitable for young children is beyond me.

Does anyone else remember this (don't think I made it up) ?

I loved Kizzy, there was a bbc series. The caravan got burnt after grandma died and she was given lots of clothes, but when she started at the village school, they all laughed at her, because they were a child cast offs.

If I were you keep googling bits you remember, I do that and I always finally find what I am looking for, usually a song, book or movie.

@custardbear
No, definitely not an insult, it's used by the Romany gypsies, didicoy means half romany and half non romany. Pretty sure kizzy mum was a non gypsy.

Babyroobs

When the grandmother dies the relatives burn the caravan, it's part of Gypsy culture to do that.

But the people she moves in with discover it was only 'badly scorched' so it's repaired for Kizzy.

Makes the ott gender stereotyping of Janet & Johnsound poritively healthy.
I was astounded when reading and choosing children's books for a friends' child a few years ago at the number that featured cruelty to animals - or 'they got a dog and didn't like it, so took it back' type of narrative - horrendous.

Was it about a gypsy girl that joined the guides? I don't remember her name but on the front of the book she wore a yellow dress i seem to recall.

Guypsy Latimer! That ws her name!!!