29. The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald

In 1946, Henry House is an orphan who has just been selected as Wilton College’s newest practice baby.  All across America, colleges have set up practice houses for home economic students to learn about keeping a proper house for their husband, including taking care of a new baby.  Program director Martha Gaines has had many practice babies over the years, but Henry is different and she soon finds herself unable to give him up at the end of the year and take care of a new baby.  Breaking college rules, she adopts Henry, and raises him in the practice house as her own child.  Their lives run smoothly until Henry learns who his birth mother is, and decides he wants to explore the world on his own.  From being an animator for Walt Disney, to working on the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, and to finally learning to deal with women and his unusual childhood, this fictional account of a most unusual life is an irresistible read.

Grunwald got her idea for the novel by looking at a Cornell web site that studied the history of practice babies.  In fact, Cornell received their first “practice” baby in 1919, and over the next fifty years, hundreds of students helped raise numerous infants at the Cornell practice house.  The Irresistible Henry House is a charming, well-written account about a little known practice in America, as well as a wonderful, historically accurate account of a man struggling to find love and meaning in his life.