Live to Be Usefulor, the Story of Annie Lee and Her Irish Nurse

Thirteen-year-old Annie Lee has spent five years trapped in a body that no longer obeys her, confined to one room, her childhood memories of running and playing as distant as a fading dream. Then arrives Annorah: an Irish nurse, sharp-tongued and illiterate, carrying her own bitterness from a hard life. What begins as duty becomes something neither expected, a friendship that transforms them both. Annie teaches Annorah to read; Annorah teaches Annie that strength has nothing to do with legs that walk. But their fragile sanctuary cannot survive the priest and community who see Annorah's newfound faith as dangerous, her education as transgression. When Annie dies, the world assumes the story ends. It doesn't. Annorah carries what she learned into the world, becoming a quiet force of change in her community. A turn-of-the-century story about what survives when we lose the people we love, and how love, once planted, grows in directions we cannot predict.