Perhaps because of her own challenges — she was born with scars over both corneas and attended a special sight-saving class because she is legally blind — Jean often writes about the underdog. Her characters often face external challenges, but it is the inner life that she portrays so convincingly. Says Meguido Zola in Language Arts: “Ultimately, that is the real thrust of Jean Little’s novels — recognizing and mastering the enemy within rather than tilting at the one without.”
The basket that Jean wove in sight-saving class, and which was the inspiration for Anna’s gift in this book, now resides in the Osborne Collection of Children’s Books in Toronto, along with the short version of From Anna that eventually grew into this story. After fifty years of creating books that children and adults love, Jean is still writing, still listening to children to find what engages and disturbs and delights them, and still finding intriguing characters that demand to be let into a book. She lives in Guelph, Ontario.
Credits
Cover photo by Kathryn Hollinrake
Chapters 1, 3 and 13: “Die Gedanken Sind Frei”
Written by Arthur Kevess
Under licence from The Bicycle Music Company.
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
Other books by Jean Little:
Orphan at My Door
Brothers Far from Home
Exiles from the War
Dancing Through the Snow
Pippin the Christmas Pig
Listen, Said the Donkey
The Sweetest One of All