Selina: Her Hopeful Efforts and Her Livelier Failures

At seventeen, Selina Auboussier Wistar already understands what it means to count pennies. When she overhears her mother and aunt whispering about money troubles, she does what any hopeful young woman in 1914 might do: she decides to teach neighborhood children, despite the fact that no one asked her to and the Victorian world isn't quite ready for her ambitions. George Madden Martin's novel captures something effervescent about first efforts the way only a writer who remembers them fondly can. Selina is earnest, determined, and blissfully unaware that the world has other plans for her. What unfolds is neither a simple tale of triumph nor tragedy, but something more honest: the stumble and getting up, the hope and the livelier failure that shape a life. The title says it all. This is a book for anyone who has ever tried something ridiculous and necessary at the same time.