Book ID: five kids, orphaned and hiding it, 70s

Post date: 2021-04-13 03:39:37

A friend of mine on Facebook is trying to remember a book about orphans living on their own, which she read circa 1980-ish.

My friend: "I'm pretty sure I had it as a scholastic book in the late '70s / early 80s. I know it was made into a movie. Gosh I remember so many images from that book that I probably only read once or twice. I think they were like five kids, the oldest were girls and they were working hard to try and keep the family together and hide the fact that the parents were both dead."

She thinks Appalachia was the setting.

My friend's desire to find this book, which came up in a discussion on my Facebook page, has infected me. Any thoughts?

It's not The Boxcar Children.

The context it came up in was a discussion of the expression "Shank's mare." If you travel by Shank's mare, you are walking. She learned this expression from this book.

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