FOUND! That childhood book I couldn’t remember…

21 November 2009 | Community, Culture, Internet, Media, Personal | Comments

For any of you interested in my quest to find a childhood book that I couldn’t identify, my sanity has been saved by the father/son team of Jerry and David Daniel.

Jerry spied my plea for help on Facebook and made it his personal mission to help me find it, and then David identified it immediately (I should have consulted David’s steel-trap memory first… next time I’ll know).

And the book? “The Marvelous Inventions of Alvin Fernald,” by Clifford B. Hicks, first of a series that you can learn more about at www.alvinfernald.com.

I’ll quote from David’s note:

Alvin is using the invention on the cover.  I quote from Chapter 7, “The One-Jerk Bed Maker”:

“Rummaging through the boxes on his inventing bench, he found a ball of strong cord and two small pulleys. He tied the pulleys to the head of the bed, one on each side of the pillow. He cut two long pieces of cord. One end of each cord he tied to one of the clothespins. The other ends he ran through the pulleys. He brought the cords down under the bed, leaving plenty of slack on the floor, then tied the two cords to the footboard. He squeezed open two clothespins and fastened one to the sheet and blanket on each side of the bed… He pulled slowly on the cords. The blanket and sheet slid neatly into place, as tough pulled by two invisible hands. Alvin Fernald, Great Inventor, had done it again.”

Of course, it’s possible you remember ANOTHER children’s book in which the protagonist invents an automatic bed maker. This is the one I recalled.

As I write, the local library is finding a copy and bringing it to the nearest branch.

Jerry, David– thanks!