Prudence of the Parsonage

At fifteen, Prudence becomes the heart of a household without a mother. When her father, a Methodist minister, accepts a call to Mount Mark, Iowa, Prudence arrives with her four younger sisters in tow, tasked with transforming the local parsonage into a home. Five years after her mother's death, she has already learned to fold grief into purpose, to quiet her own needs beneath the endless demands of sisterhood and housework. Mount Mark is full of characters who watch the minister's family with careful eyes. The parsonage itself, with its quirks and limitations, becomes both challenge and comfort. Prudence's sisters, each distinct, each exhausting, each beloved, bring chaos and laughter in equal measure. As Prudence attempts to impose order on delicious pandemonium, she discovers that running a household is nothing compared to the subtler work of growing up, finding her place, and learning that being loved matters just as much as being needed. Ethel Hueston captures a vanished America with humor and tenderness: the small dignities, the quiet sacrifices, the way community both constrains and sustains. For readers who loved Anne of Green Gables or Little Women.