Dotty Dimple's Flyaway

Katie Clifford earns the nickname Flyaway from her family because she is so small, light and restless. In her grandmother Parlin's kitchen at Willowbrook, she proudly grinds coffee onto the floor, then pumps water over herself while trying to help with the housework. Sophie May builds this children's story around Katie's confident mistakes, her fond brother Horace and the cousins who come to visit. Her tangled speech gives the household scenes much of their humor.

The story also turns from childish mischief to questions of fairness. When Jennie Vance finds three dollars in a rag-bag, Dotty reports the incident to her grandmother, but the narrator challenges Dotty's pride in her own goodness. Family conversations and small misunderstandings become occasions to consider honesty, sympathy and the way children judge one another. For readers of older children's fiction, the humor lies in the gap between a child's certainty and the adult view of her actions.