The other night a friend who was recuperating from an injury asked us to tell him a story as he fell asleep. A story, we wondered, h-mm-mm. Why not read a kid's book for this exhausted, wounded grown-up. Looking through our library, an ancient copy of Kay Thompson's Eloise jumped into our hands. As we read it aloud, we marveled at the precocious little girl on the loose in the great hotel. We'd totally forgotten the story: a self-possessed kid surviving in the face of a wealthy mom who…