Christina and the Boys

Christina is eight years old, and she has spent her whole life in the nursery wing, dreaming in her father's empty library while he was away. Now he is returning, but not alone. He brings a new wife, a new stepmother, and the terrifying possibility of a new brother. Christina has never learned to face the world outside her nurseries, and now the world is coming to her. The family motto hangs on the wall: "Fear dwells not here." But fear is exactly what Christina knows best. She has imagined a thousand dangers, trembled at a thousand shadows. How can she be brave when everything she knew is changing? Her old nurse is kind but cannot protect her from this. Her new friend Dawn offers something like companionship, but the real battle is inside Christina's own heart: learning that courage isn't the absence of fear, but the decision to act anyway. Over a century later, this little novel still whispers to any child (or grown-up who remembers being one) who has ever felt too small for the challenges ahead.