a book

[serialcondition.livejournal.com]

this is not strictly speaking a linguistic question but I assume it has to do with Russian:

can anyone help me remember the title/author of a book I read as a child -- it was about an orphan girl who lived, I think, on a garbage dump. There was an old man with an apartment full of clocks. He could control time. And also he had a turtle. That is all I remember.

I think it's a Russian book but I could be wrong and it could have been a translation.

if no one knows, perhaps there's a Russian childrens lit community where I could ask this?

thank you
t.

UPD with a great thanks to temcat the mystery is solved -- it is Momo by Michael Ende (a German! author)
now I'm looking forward to revisiting one of my favorite books from my younger years