My mother often read me a book in the late 1960s to early 1970s about a family that was grumpy and unkind toward one another until a good feeling entered (or kind of floated) their home. They then began to feel better about themselves and treated each other with kindness.
Sounds like Russell Hoban’s “The Little Brute Family”. The Little Brutes are small, trollish animals who are constantly rude and unpleasant to each other, and their mother serves them gravel for dinner. The good feeling, or “piece of nice” was found by the littlest brute, who starts saying “Please” and “Thank you”, and helping around the house. Despite their initial alarm, the good feeling soon expands to include the entire Brute family, enough so they later change their name to Nice.
There’s even a sequel of sorts, “The Stone Doll of Sister Brute”, where Sister get a stone which she makes into a doll, and a mean but lonely dog who just wants to be loved. They’re both worth looking for.
Hope this helps!
This sounds like ‘The Little Brute Family’ by Russell Hoban, with illustrations by Lillian Hoban (1967).
“They eat sand and gravel for breakfast and a stew of sticks and stones for dinner. No one says “please” or “thank you.” Instead, they kick and yell and punch and shove. Then one day everything changes, when Baby Brute happens upon “a little wandering lost good feeling in a field of daisies.” When he brings it home in his pocket, nothing is ever the same for the Little Brute Family.”
Thank you so much, Panda Rosa and Chanda. My mother read this book often to me as a child in the early 1970s. She raised me and my siblings after my dad died when we were little. She now has leukemia and these little things now mean so very much. She will be very happy about this since over the years we often wondered how to find this book. Thanks again. Consider it solved!!