Books in Yearling books series

Being small is a big concern for Chig Kalpin. Like the insects that catch folks unawares with their bites on a summer evening, Chig is small enough and silent enough that she’s near about invisible. But she has a heartfelt desire to become a big person, both in stature and in spirit, and soon her adventures culminate with the Great Niplak Train Disaster, where she helps the folks in the hills and hollers of southern Indiana make it through the Great Depression with a little more to spread between the covers of their sandwiches. Haven’t heard of it? Well, as Chig might say, “Set a spell and turn the page.”From the Hardcover edition.

'James and I stayed on at home and everything was quiet and sunny and we got to thinking the war would never come after all . . . Just when we were so sure nothing would happen, the German plane came over. It came over one night at one o'clock in the morning and the sound was quite different from an English plane and we all woke up. You could hear it drumming and drumming like a big bee in a flower, buroom, buroom, buroom, round and round in the air above the house. Then suddenly there were five loud explosions. After that there was a terrible silence and I knew that Father and Mother were looking at each other in the darkness and I felt myself getting small and tight inside. Then Father said quietly, "Meg, they must go!"'Now I am going to write a Diary because we are going to America because of the War. It has just been decided. I will write down everything about it because we shall be so much older when we come back that I will never remember it if I do not. So this is the beginning. Oh, please let us come back soon, please.'This is the fictional diary of Sabrina Lind, an eleven-year-old English girl who, with her little brother James, is sent on the long voyage across the sea to her aunt in America.