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Morsels of Mischief: Orphan Tales from my Childhood

by Tom McClarren with Chris McClarren

258 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #08-0791; ISBN 1-4251-8111-2; US$20.00, C$20.00, EUR13.66, £10.33

A clever account of one gutsy boy's experience outwitting boredom and adversity with imaginative chutzpah in a Catholic orphanage from 1945-1954. This candid memoir will inspire readers of all ages.

About the Book

In the fall of 1945, five-year-old Tommy McClarren was placed in the German St. Vincent Orphan Home in St. Louis, Missouri, where he would live and go to school for the next nine years. Whether facing Sister Monica in a makeshift boxing ring, scheming to get his prized dice back from Sister Gilbert, or engineering a Robin Hood-style theft of the Chapel coffers right under Sister Columbo's nose, he transformed adversity into one adventure after another.

Unlike most orphans, Tom now regards his time spent at the Home as a gift. Eager to offer a different perspective on what many people consider “neglected unfortunates,” he has compiled his most compelling tales into this candid, witty memoir of a gutsy orphan’s life.

"When a natural born storyteller is placed in an orphanage, he creates magic only found in fairytales. Thanks to his daughter, we can now share these engaging stories told with love and sure the challenge your perceptions."

Bill McClellan,
columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"I learned more about the 'Home' reading Tom's book than in all my years as its director of boys' athletics. It's obvious that German St. Vincent's Orphan Home was a very positive transition in the lives of so many young people."

Ron Holtman

About the Authors

Tom McClarren

Tom McClarren lives in St. Louis Missouri where he’s lived his entire life. Reared at German St. Vincent’s Orphan Home, he acquired a lifetime desire to live life as a freethinking, but discerning prankster. Whether at his thirty-six year career as a salesman at Tubular Steel, Inc., raising his three rascally children or creating an outstanding garden hidden south in the city with his wife, Rosie, he found ways to entertain anyone who crossed his path with his outrageousness – and stories. Currently he is traveling the world, finding time to squeeze in a little bridge and continuing his calling - perfecting his methods of mischief.

Chris McClarren

Chris McClarren lives in St. Louis Missouri about 8 blocks from her parents with her partner of 20 years, Andy Reago. Except for the years finishing a B.F.A. in Sculpture and Printmaking in the “Land of Oz,” she’s always lived in St. Louie, too. A professional dabbler, she creates and dances to music with friends - and by herself, writes for radical zines, watches her wildflower prairie grow, recycles magazines into dreamy collages, and orchestrates her genetically inherited talents of trouble-making into surreal visions and actions toward a world mutually delirious, raucously inviting, wild and serenely ready to defend the marvelous with all the magic we dare call upon. She adores her family and is dedicated to preserving her family’s legacy of playfulness.

Excerpts