Mine for Keeps Jean Little New York: Viking Penguin, 1995. 213 pp. Cloth, $17.99. ISBN 0-670-85967-2. Grades 3 - 6 / Ages 8 -11. Review by Joan Payzant.

excerpt:

With a jerk, Sal rolled away from her little sister to face the wall, her braces clanking together. A giant sob ached in her throat. As her first tears wet the pillow under her cheek, she took back the wish she had been making so faithfully for such a long time, the wish `come true' just last night. In spite of the feeling she had had when Mother hugged her in the car, . . . in spite of all the years of waiting and wanting to go home to stay, Sally wanted to go back, back to where she was known and safe and never left alone for a minute. She wanted to go back to school!

"Mine for Keeps" is author Jean Little's first novel, newly republished, twenty-three years after it won the Little Brown Children's Book Award in 1962. It is a sensitive story about ten-year-old Sally Copeland, who suffers from cerebral palsy. As the story opens, Sally is just returning to her family home after living for several years in a special school.