A Little Princess
Sara Crewe arrives at a London boarding school with a loving father, a vivid imagination, and a generous heart. When her fortunes suddenly change, she must face hardship and cruelty while holding on to kindness, courage, and the belief that every girl can be a princess.
Why we recommend it
A timeless story that builds vocabulary, reading comprehension, and empathy. Sara's challenges encourage students to think about kindness, resilience, friendship, inequality, and the difference between wealth and true character. Rich descriptions and memorable dialogue make it especially rewarding for developing readers.
Start of the book
Once, on a dark winter day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lit and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the big main streets.
She sat with her feet tucked under her and leaned against her father, who held her in his arm, as she stared out the window at the passing people with a strange, old-fashioned thoughtfulness in her big eyes.
She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look on her small face. It would have been an old look for a child of twelve, and Sara Crewe was only seven. The fact was, however, that she was always dreaming and thinking odd things, and she couldn’t remember any time when she hadn’t been thinking things about adults and the world they belonged to. She felt as if she had lived a long, long time.
At this moment she was remembering the voyage she had just made from Bombay with her father, Captain Crewe. She was thinking of the big ship, of the Lascars passing silently to and fro on it, of the children playing about on the hot deck, and of some young officers’ wives who used to try to make her talk to them and laugh at the things she said.
Mostly, she was thinking what a strange thing it was that at one time one was in India in the scorching sun, and then in the middle of the ocean, and then driving in a strange vehicle through strange streets where the day was as dark as the night. She found this so puzzling that she moved closer to her father.
