The Little Hunchback Zia

Zia is a hunchback boy born into a world that cannot look past his curved back. Shunned, mocked, and defined by his deformity, he flees into the night when he can no longer bear the weight of others' pity and cruelty. Wandering through darkness both literal and spiritual, he encounters strangers who see only his twisted form and pass by without kindness. But Zia keeps walking, drawn by something he cannot name, until he arrives in Bethlehem on the holiest of nights. There, in a stable, he witnesses the birth of a child born in humility and obscurity and understands, at last, that worth is not measured by the body. Frances Hodgson Burnett, the beloved author of The Secret Garden, crafted this lesser-known tale with quiet urgency: a story about a child who must cross through despair to find that he was never broken to begin with.