If I describe this book, can you help work out what it is?

[fastliving]

It's a children's book, probably written in the 70s - or even before.
It features a young girl, maybe around the age of 12 who discovers an abandoned baby.
The girl takes the baby to a safe place then looks after her, keeping her warm, fed and happy.
I think at some point the Mother of the baby returns for the baby - was the Mother a gypsy, or travelled with the fair, something like that.
The young girl I think had a younger sibling too, and the baby was a girl I think too.
I can't remember why the girl kept the bay as a secret, or how she managed to keep her so happy....I was fiction!

Would love to read it again as an adult....but have no idea what the name of the book is or the author.

The safe place was I think an old shed and the girl used her/her sisters old things like clothes etc to dress the baby, all without the knowledge of any adult.

I don't know what it is, but I remember this book! I seem to remember at the end the fairground baby had gone away wearing the doll's clothes and the doll was left wearing the dirty clothes. Sorry I can't be more use.

I remember a book with this kind of storyline by Enid Blyton. I can't remember what it was called though.

The one I was thinking about was 'the very big secret' www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book-details.php?id=311&title=The+Very+Big+Secret

I read this book, but I can’t remember the title, or author!

I laos remember an Enid Blyton book where a brother and sister look after an abandoned baby, but can't remember if it being a fairground baby though.

They used their pocket money to go and buy milk and orange juice and kept the baby in the shed.

Was the little girl obsessed with playing with her dolls? Dressing them, lining them up etc? I think the big secret rings a vekkbtoo

Bell too

I want to know what this book is too!

Sounds similar to a book I loved when I was 9/10 called Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink.

Mandy or Bunty annual? Sounds familiar to me, my aunt gave me some of hers when I was about 10 but it would've been a short story in one of them so maybe it's not those?

My first thought was that it sounds like a story you would find in Mandy or Bunty comic too!

I wonder if you're my aunt @bookmum08, lol

No I still have all my annuals .

Ah good! Lol!

Bits of this really remind me of a book I was trying to remember recently, the girl in that was very wealthy, I think, with a lovely playhouse at the end of her garden (I remember descriptions of it being all pink and white) where she kept the baby.

I think she had a younger sibling too. Not sure if this is the same book (I don’t remember the gypsy/fair element) but bits sound really similar. This would have been 70s/early 80s I read it.

Thanks Mother and others, I think it was Rnid Blyton 'The Very Big Secret'
Bet it's a crock of shite, but I loved it as a child!

Good old Enid. She was a bit obsessed with Gypsies and Fairground Folk!

The story in that book has stayed with me too, I remember feeling quite unsettled when I read it, I think because they were effectively kidnapping a baby!