''Tunes for a Small Harmonica'' is a novel by Barbara Wersba about an adolescent

tomboy A tomboy is a term for a girl or a young woman with masculine qualities. It can include wearing androgynous or unfeminine clothing and actively engage in physical sports or other activities and behaviors usually associated with boys or men. W ...

named J.F. McAllister. It was originally published by

Dell Publishing Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, that was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000 (approx. $145,000 in 2021), two employees and one magazine title, ''I Confess'', and ...

but was then reprinted by

Harper and Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...

publishing. It was a finalist for the 1977

National Book Award for Young People's Literature The National Book Award for Young People's Literature is one of five annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation (NBF) to recognize outstanding literary work by US citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers".< ...

. The novel has been translated into Catalan, Dutch, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.

Plot

J.F. receives a harmonica from friend for her birthday and ends up learning to play it. She becomes quite good and this skill becomes useful after she ends up falling in love with her poetry teacher. She then attempts to raise $1000 to help her teacher return to England to finish his Master's thesis.

References

1976 American novels {{1970s-novel-stub