Little Aliens

The classroom and the family home pull children in different directions in Myra Kelly's collection of stories about immigrant pupils on New York's Lower East Side. The opening considers the difficult partnership between mothers and teachers, using comic examples of parental excuses and school misunderstandings. Behind the jokes lies a practical concern: a child judged slow or troublesome may have a physical difficulty that adults have overlooked.

Miss Bailey's care for Becky Zabrowsky gives these schoolroom stories a more personal focus. Seven-year-old Becky arrives in cold weather with inadequate clothing, yet her pride makes help difficult to offer. Her religious dietary rules also shape the teacher's efforts to find her something to eat. Humor, children's speech and moments of distress sit together in these accounts of education and family life. Readers interested in early twentieth-century school fiction can find an attentive portrait of the small negotiations through which adults try to understand their pupils.