Plot
In a small town in 1938, adolescent Sammy Perkins and his sibling Ellie find Alice alone in an unheated shack, where her heartless stepfather forces her to live like an animal because he is disgusted by her disabilities. Alice's mother Ada was bereft of any viable options after her husband's untimely death, and agreed to marry her 2nd husband before he revealed how uncommonly cruel he could be. Sammy and Ellie quickly grow close to Alice despite their father's deeply rooted concerns over the known cruelty of Alice’s stepfather. Alice struggled with both hearing problems and epileptic seizures. Together, the brother and sister managed to garner assistance from
- their Grandmother who became Alice’s teacher after proving how quickly Alice, despite her disability, was able to learn and recite the Tree poem Sammie taught her,
- and Father,
- and the Town Doctor who managed to acquire a top -of- the line hearing aid along with medicine that substantially reduced the number and severity of Alice’s epileptic seizures.
This all helped their friend live a far more fulfilling life. But the process is severely tested. Sammy's school acquaintances were also hideously cruel and mocked Alice’s speech patterns typical of her deafness which itself was the result of being forced to live for many years in an unheated shack with no one to look after her health. Additionally, the unbridled cruelty of Alice's stepfather was the worst test of all right up until his confrontation with Sammy and Ellie’s father, Jack who forcefully appointed himself as Alice’s new guardian.
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