“The sun will turn Rosalind into a regular Indian. Cartwright had something to say about that as well. Worst of all, I go outside in the Indian sun without a hat. I won’t tie it back neatly or wear a band.
I don’t know that I have ever seen a girl’s hair worn in quite that way.” My hair grows and grows like the leaves on a rain tree. Cartwright said, “Rosalind is such an original child. Mother’s English friends were often in and out of our house with criticisms of me disguised as kindness. Ranjit was the burra mali, the head of all the servants, and Amina was my ayah, though at my age I was much too old to have a nursemaid, so Amina was really Mother’s lady’s maid. There were all the servants: gardeners, sweepers, cooks, servers, and Father’s cyce, his groom, who had nothing to do since Father was away, but out of kindness Mother would not let him go, because he had a family to support. The battalion was sent to fight in countries I had never heard of and whose names I couldn’t spell. No, before that, when the war came and Father, a major in the British Indian Army who led a battalion of Gurkha Rifles, went off to the war. How can kindness get you into so much trouble? It started when Mother dropped into sickness and I was left on my own. This paperback edition includes an excerpt of All My Noble Dreams and Then What Happens, the standalone companion to Small Acts of Amazing Courage.
National Book Award–winning author Gloria Whelan’s “insight into history and her characters’ minds make every moment of this saga believable” ( Publishers Weekly, starred review). As she comes of age during this volatile period of history, will she find the courage to claim her own identity and become her own person? This penetrating story, told with lush and vivid detail, contrasts Rosalind’s privilege and daily experiences in India with the hardship of the people around her. Rosalind longs to live the life that her heart tells her, not what her parents prescribe for her, but no one seems to listen. A man named Ghandi is coming to power, talking about nonviolence and independence from Britain. While her father has been at war, Rosalind sees the country slowly change. Rosalind is kept from boarding school in England at her mother’s insistence. It is India, 1918, six months after the end of World War I, and Rosalind awaits the return of her father from the war. Kindness has incredible consequences in this compelling novel set in colonial India from a “master storyteller” ( Publishers Weekly) and National Book Award-winning author.
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