# Main character (book) raises his/her younger siblings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 17, 2013, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153 "2013-06-17T01:23:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/1 "2013-06-17T01:23:41Z")
Don’t say **The Outsiders** , hate that book. Anyway, I’ve been watching the seasons of **Party of Five** I missed on Amazon Prime. I’d liked the show (though it scared me a bit because my own parents changed their will when I turned 18, leaving my brother to me if necessary) but never got to finish watching the series. Now I’m intrigued by what novels - fiction only please - might feature a main character raising his or her younger siblings. Present day or historical matters little, but I’d like for it to be somewhat realistic. And I’d like for these to be books meant for adults rather than children’s literature, but I guess YA is okay if it’s a fantasy sort of setting where a character my more plausibly take charge of the family at a young age and not raise the kids in a boxcar. Got recs? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/2 "2013-06-17T02:08:19Z")
There’s an older (1969) YA novel called _Where the Lilies Bloom_ by Bill and Vera Cleaver. I haven’t read it in about 20 years so I’m fuzzy on the details, but the story involves a young girl trying to keep her family together and self-sufficient after the death of their parents. It’s set in IIRC the Appalachian mountains, and the children gather wild herbs and sell them to make money. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/3 "2013-06-17T03:10:06Z")
[A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Heartbreaking_Work_of_Staggering_Genius) is actually a, well, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Or at least a really really good book. College senior, so not exactly a child, but a pretty immature college senior, at least at the beginning of the book. It’s a memoir, so it’s more or less nonfiction. A surprisingly good book that inspired a terrible movie and worse book series, [Flowers in the Attic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_in_the_Attic). While her mother was still alive, Katniss, the protagonist in [The Hunger Games](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games) books is the de facto parent to her younger sister after mom goes almost catatonic in reaction to dad’s death. There’s not a whole lot of interaction between the two, but her having to take on this responsibility shapes Katniss’ character and is the inciting incident in the main story. We do read quite a bit of detail about what her caregiving days were like. While I haven’t read this one, I’ve absolutely loved everything I’ve read from Cynthia Voight, so I’ll go ahead and recommend [Homecoming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homecoming_%28novel%29)on that count. This one’s YA. There’s one I read as a middle schooler (so mid to late 80’s, although I don’t know if it was old or new back then) that has been springing to mind lately. I cannot recall the author or title, but with your indulgence I’ll mention it here and see if anyone knows what I’m talking about so as not to create a new thread on the topic: It was set more or less in modern day (so 70’s/80’s) and the caregiver child was a girl. She had at least two younger sibs, and I’m fairly sure at least one was a brother. The scene that keeps springing to mind is when she’s cooking “spaghetti” for dinner, and her brother (?) brings her to the verge of tears when he harshly points out it’s not “real spaghetti” but noodles with a can of tomato soup poured on top. Maybe it was _Where the Lilies Bloom_, but it seems to me it was a more urban setting. Sorry, I know that’s super vague, but it’s really bugging me! ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/4 "2013-06-17T04:23:30Z")
[Winter’s Bone](http://www.amazon.com/Winters-Bone-Daniel-Woodrell/dp/031605755X), though it’s not so much “raised” as takes care of/teaches for a long period of time. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/5 "2013-06-17T07:31:03Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > While her mother was still alive, Katniss, the protagonist in [The Hunger Games](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games) books is the de facto parent to her younger sister after mom goes almost catatonic in reaction to dad’s death. There’s not a whole lot of interaction between the two, but her having to take on this responsibility shapes Katniss’ character and is the inciting incident in the main story. We do read quite a bit of detail about what her caregiving days were like. The bits about the little sister’s own contributions are also good. In many works, it seems as if the parents (or, in this thread’s case, caretakers) are the ones who Do Everything and any contribution from other family members are “helping Mommy”; in this case, the two sisters’ contributions are unequal because so are the sisters, but it’s not a matter of “holding up the household is Katniss’ job and nobody else moves a finger except to dry the dishes”. ---
**Author:** ![WisdomofLife](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/34f0e0/32.png) [@WisdomofLife](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WisdomofLife)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/6 "2013-06-17T11:31:19Z")
The one I can remember off the top of my head is On to Oregon! by Honore Morrow. It is about the fictionalized account of the historical Sager family, one of the many pioneer families who travelled on the Oregon Trail. The parents die during the journey and John, the oldest of the children, must protect his family till they reach Oregon. I remember reading this in elementary school. I remember it being OK read Here is Amazon bookpage for the novel. [http://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Honore-Morrow/dp/0688104940/ref=sr\_1\_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371467799&sr=1-1&keywords=Sager+family](http://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Honore-Morrow/dp/0688104940/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371467799&sr=1-1&keywords=Sager+family) The Sager children do survive their journey, but the children were part of Whitman Massacre and two of them were killed. The children’s book,as I recall, does not over the Whitman Massacre part. There is Wikipedia article on real life family [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sager\_orphans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sager_orphans) ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/7 "2013-06-17T12:13:40Z")
A Series of Unfortunate Events. It’s more like saving her younger siblings from abuse at the hands of comically evil “caregivers” than raising them, but I think it qualifies. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/8 "2013-06-17T13:22:35Z")
In the first Boxcar Children book, four children move into a boxcar after their parents die, and the oldest brother Henry Alden raises his siblings until their grandfather find them and gives them a good home. I love that series. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/9 "2013-06-17T14:21:21Z")
There’s probably a book version of lilo and stitch, if that counts at all. Great Expectations also has Pip being raised by his sister and her husband. She was likely very young when she took him on. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/10 "2013-06-17T14:58:54Z")
It’s not ABOUT the raising of the younger sibling, but the set-up of Ian McEwan’s _The Cement Garden_ is that older siblings are trying to avoid foster care so they take on the task of keeping the family going after the death of their mother. It’s, um, about other things. Incest, mostly. Janet Lambert wrote about a million YA romance novels in the 50s and 60s, many of which are about Army families (and the thrill of dating a young cadet at West Point, that kind of thing). One series, the one about the Jordon family, has the mother die fairly soon into it, and the oldest girl ends up raising the young kids - there’s like six kids in the family – because the father is an Army officer and always off doing military things. These are very dated, and unless you have some nostalgic attachment to them, are mostly interesting now as a glimpse at that era of American life. The dad is perfectly content to let a young teen become the “lady of the house” in a way that seems alarming now. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/11 "2013-06-17T15:33:59Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > It’s not ABOUT the raising of the younger sibling, but the set-up of Ian McEwan’s _The Cement Garden_ is that older siblings are trying to avoid foster care so they take on the task of keeping the family going after the death of their mother. It’s, um, about other things. Incest, mostly. I just have to say about this one – if you read it, try to pace yourself in such a way that you can guarantee that you’re not reading the ending on a crowded train with a man reading over your shoulder while he’s crushed up against you. Just trust me on this, okay? ---
**Author:** ![diggerwam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/919ad9/32.png) [@diggerwam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggerwam)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/12 "2013-06-17T15:39:52Z")
Another vote for AHWOSG. It is non fiction, which OP didn’t want, but awesome story nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/main-character-book-raises-his-her-younger-siblings/661153/13 "2013-06-17T19:10:17Z")
> [@diggerwam](#): > > Another vote for AHWOSG. It is non fiction, which OP didn’t want, but awesome story nonetheless. And, really, the "non-fiction"ness is somewhat dubious. Certainly there are lots of fantasy sequences and time compression and other literary tricks which blur the lines of fiction and non-. It’s just a good read, no matter how much or little of it actually happened in meatspace.