X-Post from StoryBooks: Need help finding author/title of book

Hi all,

Someone from another board I am on is looking for a children's book from the 1970s. I figured I would ask here if anyone knew it.

"I have looked on numerous sites for help on finding a book I read years ago. A boy meets these two old ladies that are living in poverty. He brings them food and helps them around the house. One lady accepts his help, the other rejects it. They both quote Shakespeare a lot and he learns it so he can talk to them, it helps him do well in English class but his other subject's suffer because he's working to try and support them. Eventually he finds out the two ladies are actually the same person, the woman has dual personalities or is having fun with him. The lady dies in the end and leaves a fortune to the boy.

If anyone knows this book please let me know."

Any ideas?

Re: X-Post from StoryBooks: Need help finding author/title of book

Found this on Google:

HTH

"The Dream Watcher" (1968) by Barbara Wersba.

From loganberrybooks.com:

" The main character, the boy, doesn't fit in at home or school... He
meets an old woman who is manifestly eccentric, and claims to be a
retired actress, who once knew Sarah Bernhardt. She helps the boy
learn to be himself. Its only when she dies that the boy finds out she
was nuts.. she was making up her entire life, whole-cloth."
http://loganberrybooks.com/solved-d.html


From The New York Times review:

"The Dream Watcher is the story of Albert Scully, a high-school boy...
It is also the story of Orpha Woodfin, a marvelous old nut...
Miss Wersba has bravely undertaken the difficult stylistic
accouterment of much quoted material from Shakespeare...
The old lady, living in the only remaining original house in the
midst of a new development, bills herself as a bygone actress who once
played Juliet..."

Re: X-Post from StoryBooks: Need help finding author/title of book

Yeah, that what we thought, but he ordered that book and it's not it.

Any other ideas?

Re: X-Post from StoryBooks: Need help finding author/title of book

Bump for the night-time crew!

Any help would be appreciated.