Plain Girl

Esther was almost ten years old before the Pennsylvania school authorities forced her father to send her to public school. Father and the family were Amish-or Plain People-and the Amish believe in teaching their children at home according to their own ways. But secretly Esther was excited at the thought of seeing the wonderful things in school which her big brother Dan had described to her before he ran away-no one knew where-because Father was too strict. Dan's name was never spoken at home, but Esther prayed he would come back one day, for she was sure her mother, at least, loved and missed Dan as she did.Once she became used to it, Esther loved school-the brightly colored crayons, the lovely books with pictures, the kind teacher-and most of all she liked Mary, the prettiest girl she had ever seen, who had a beautiful pink dress and who wanted to be best friends with Esther. Yet Father said it was wrong to make friends who were not Amish, that it was wrong to take pride in clothes and to wear bright colors. Esther longed to talk with Dan, for she was sure he would understand her doubts and problems.In this moving and tender story, Virginia Sorensen, the novelist and author of an earlier children's book, Curious Missie, tells of Esther's slow emergence from a shy child to a girl who thinks for herself and who can accept the best of the new world without giving up the tradition into which she was born. Girls everywhere, of all backgrounds, will discover in Esther a friend to whom they will return again and again.