Our Winnie, and the Little Match Girl

Winifred is nine years old, and she is dying. From her nursery window she watches the swallows gather in great murmuring flocks, preparing to flee the coming cold. She knows she will not see them return. In this quiet, achingly tender story, a frail child confronts her own mortality for the first time and discovers something remarkable in the confronting: she has been selfish, and there is still time to change. Through small acts of kindness toward the poor children in her village, Winifred finds a way to leave something of herself behind when the swallows carry her memory south. Evelyn Everett-Green writes with delicate, unsentimental grace about the things children understand far better than adults: that love given freely is never lost, that beauty observed keenly makes it yours forever, and that courage looks very much like a small hand reaching out to someone with less.