The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware

Mary Ware arrives at Warwick Hall with the desert sun still in her hair and a heart full of impossible hope. A spirited girl from Arizona, she's never quite fit anywhere until now. The prestigious boarding school that shaped her hero, the Little Colonel, opens its doors to her, and she's given the very room where Lloyd Sherman once slept. But her roommate Ethelinda Hurst is everything Mary isn't: polished, wealthy, and privately contemptuous of this enthusiastic newcomer from the West. What unfolds is the most tender kind of transformation. Two girls from opposite Americas circle each other, clash, and gradually reshape one another. Mary learns refinement; Ethelinda discovers that warmth and genuine courage matter more than old money. Johnston writes with quiet grace about that fragile moment when childhood ends and we become, sometimes against our will, who we're meant to be.