An Episode of Sparrows (by Rumer Godden)

In the bombed-out slums of London after WWII, Lovejoy lives with a restaurant owner and his wife while her mother travels as a singer. Little better than a street urchin, Lovejoy has grown up tough. But when she grabs an envelope from a sickly boy who found it on the street, something new enters her life.

The envelope contains a packet of seeds. In secret she plants a tiny garden in a vacant lot, but it's soon destroyed by the gang of boys who play there and don't allow girls. The leader of the gang, Tip, feels bad, though, and shows her a better place for her secret garden -- in the ruins of the local Catholic church. Thus begins a strange odyssey the two street children take together.

Rumer Godden originally published this as an adult novel. The New York Review of Books put out this reprint in 2007 for the author's centenary. There's nothing terribly inappropriate for children here, but the way it's told, involving insight into adult behavior and intricate shifting of viewpoint and time, may confuse inexperienced readers. Children who have read The Secret Garden probably can manage it.

AN EPISODE OF SPARROWS is beautifully moving, rich, and complex, filled with affectionate understanding of human beings in all their astounding variety. Every character, major and minor, is a fully fleshed-out creation. Though there's a deeply melancholy, even tragic, undercurrent, and Godden doesn't flinch from realism, she still manages to pull off an ending that is both absolutely believable and satisfying.