This is an excellent collection of gently written short stories, set in the early part of the 20th century in New England. The first stories in the collection all have children as protagonists. Some of them are a little precious, but most of them enter into a child’s world in a respectful and subtle way. Many of these stories are people’s ordinary lives, and about the ways they find to escape from these lives. It takes a lot of courage for these characters to break away from the expectations of their families, but some of them do. The unsung hero shows up a lot here. ( )