A Round Dozen

Susan Coolidge understood something essential about childhood: that the world feels enormous when you're small, and magic hides in every cliff face and storm cloud. A Round Dozen collects thirteen vignettes that pulse with that old, irreplaceable magic. There's Fritz, a boy born into a valley where the weather bites harsh, who spots a mysterious white door perched impossibly high on a cliff and decides that climbing to it is the only answer worth finding. What waits above the clouds is a realm where virtue is rewarded and the ordinary rules of life bend into something wondrous. Elsewhere, there's Queen Blossom, whose illness hasn't dimmed the devotion of her friends, and countless other small heroes learning what it means to be brave, kind, and true. These are not tales of dramatic violence or world-ending stakes. They're quieter than that: stories about the courage it takes to climb a mountain, to love someone who is fading, to choose goodness when easier paths abound. Coolidge writes with the tender precision of someone who remembers exactly how large the world felt at seven years old. For readers who still believe that doors can lead to kingdoms.