What a great book to foster dreams of what the future might hold for you daughter! The story follows three English orphans; Pauline, Petrova, and Posy Fossil; who find themselves collected into the same family by the eccentric G.U.M. or "Great Uncle Matthew." At the start of the book, the girls are babies, and as they grow up the reader gets to watch as each of them develops into a unique individual with her own interests and talents. By the end of the book, the reader gets the satisfaction of seeing them each start down a path to pursue these interests and talents further on their way to adulthood. As the girls all receive theatre and dance training, any budding young performer or ballet student would enjoy reading it. It is also quite touching to see how this family who is "collected" together rather than being formed in the traditional way, comes together and takes care of one another. Originally copywrited in 1937, it is written in a wholesome sweet way. Many of the bad attitudes which are tolerated, even praised, in modern juvenile fiction are just not there or when they appear, for example in the chapter "Pauline Learns a Lesson", are seen as opportunity for growth and improvement. One caution, however, about the book is that it does make mention of ghosts. They are only included as part of the story line of a play that the girls are in. They are not portrayed as "real." I only mention this as I try to avoid such things in the literature my children read, but did not see it as a problem here as it is only part of the plot of a make-believe story within the story and a very small part of the book. The positives far outweigh this one small aspect of the book. In closing, I highly reccomend this book! Read it and find out just who GUM is and get to know Pauline-made for the theatre, practical Petrova-more interested in cars and planes than performing, Posy-the born dancer, and Garnie and Nana who take care of them.