A Simple Gift

About the Book

Ten-year-old Carrie O’Connor has lots of questions.

Where does her mother, a famous New York children’s writer, find ideas for her best-selling Michael Madigan series? Why does her father, a busy surgeon, sometimes spend more time curing people than caring for her? How would her life change if she landed a role in a play directed by a Broadway director?

Carrie unwraps the answers in a Junior Library Guild selection called “a love song to the theatre…a love song to life.”

Selected for William Allen White and Mark Twain Master Lists.

About the Author

Nancy Ruth Patterson’s first three novels for children, The Christmas Cup, The Shiniest Rock of All, and A Simple Gift, have been adapted for stage and produced professionally. They were selected for reading master lists in several states. Her latest book, The Winner’s Walk, was selected for five state reading master lists. A retired educator, she lives in Roanoke, Virginia.