Children's story c. 1990-95 about a family of sugar people

Question

It was in my language arts text book. As far as I can recall, it was about a family that was new to town. The protagonist befriends a little boy in the family but the boy can never come out when it rains. It is later revealed that the entire family is made of sugar (or maybe it was salt...some kind of dissolvable, powdery substance familiar to grade-schoolers).

The illustration in the edition of the book I read was an Alex Katz painting of a woman wearing a headscarf and holding an umbrella.

Maybe someone else has read the same book?

Answer 1

This is "Rain, Rain, Go Away" by Isaac Asimov, 1959

You can read the story online here

“Her kitchen,” said Lillian, ignoring him, “was so spanking clean you just couldn’t believe she ever used it. I asked for a drink of water and she held the glass underneath the tap and poured slowly so that not one drop fell in the sink itself. It wasn’t affectation. She did it so casually that I just knew she always did it that way. And when she gave me the glass she held it with a clean napkin. Just hospital-sanitary.”

later

Their faces blurred as the rain hit; blurred and shrank and ran together. All three shriveled, collapsing within their clothes, which sank down into three sticky-wet heaps. And while the Wright’s sat there, transfixed with horror, Lillian found herself unable to stop the completion of her remark: “—made of sugar and afraid they would melt.”