Nine Little Goslings

Johnnie "Curly" Carr has survived her illness, but something harder awaits her: the grief of no longer being the girl she was. Thin and changed, she watches her boisterous siblings with a distance she cannot name, until Miss Inches arrives with her silk dresses and promises of a different life. Here is the temptation offered to every child who has ever felt like a stranger in her own home: leave everything you know, become someone new, be loved in a way that doesn't ask anything of you. But the pull of blood and belonging is not so easily escaped, and Johnnie must choose between the glittering unknown and the homely chaos of her father's house. Susan Coolidge writes with quiet precision about the ache of growing up, the way illness reshapes not just bodies but family dynamics, and the courage it takes to choose love when it isn't perfect.