Little Fishers and Their Nets

Thirteen-year-old Nettie Decker has spent seven blessed years away from home, and when she's summoned back to her family's farm, she finds everything has crumbled. Her father has fallen into alcoholism, the household is gripped by grinding poverty, and her stepmother has surrendered to despair. Her stepbrother is slipping down the same dangerous path. Nettie must now confront a home that looks nothing like the one she remembers, while grappling with a responsibility no child should bear: saving the adults who should be saving her. A chance encounter with a kind neighbor boy leads to a sacred pledge: she will do everything in her power to pull her father and stepbrother back from the brink. Written with the earnest warmth and firm faith characteristic of Pansy's influential children's fiction, this story holds up a mirror to the damage alcoholism wreaks on family, and to the quiet heroism of a child who refuses to give up hope.