Room for One More (1952)

The Rose household is renowned for taking in stray animals. Although it is mother Anna Rose who is the one to take in the strays, she has passed on this compassionate attitude to their three children Tim, Trot, and Teenie; their father George, who is more practical on the surface, is equally compassionate underneath. Although they cannot afford luxuries for their current three children on George's modest salary as a city engineer, after touring a local orphanage with other neighborhood mothers, Anna suggests to George (on the urging of the facility's head, Miss Kenyon) that they take in one of the orphanage's older children for a trial period. Miss Kenyon would like them to take 13-year-old Jane Miller, who comes from a broken home and attempted suicide when her mother rejected her after remarrying. Eventually, Anna and George decide to take in a second older child, equally angry and troubled Jimmy John Wilson, a 12-year-old orphaned since age two, whose belligerent behavior has made the authorities brand him as trouble; he also needs to wear leg-braces, which makes him even angrier and more violent because of what he can't do physically like most boys his age. They will also learn that he has so far refused to learn to read. Anna and George, who deal with Jane and Jimmy John's issues differently, will find if their love, support and compassion are enough to melt the two adolescents' seemingly icy hearts, although the love could wane if their own three children are negatively affected. The situation might not be helped by the attitudes of their friends and neighbors if they look down on the notion of the two being trouble.