"Thelma is not yet six years old at the outset of this tale, and already the world shows no promise of accomodating itself to her desires. Still, Thelma tries - by asking practically every adult she meets to adopt her. Not that she has been orphaned. But her parents fall dysfunctionally short of anybody's ideal. Her father's games - he plays boss, with Thelma as his naughty secretary - are at best unsettling, and her mother so fiercely favors her younger brother, the cherubic Willy, that Thelma finds herself perpetually in emotional exile." "By turns harrowing and hilarious, Thelma's story follows her bumpy progress from the rural English village of Little Slaughter to Canada to a law degree at Oxford. Along the way she encounters many potential parents and even makes some friends, but it is with the companions of her fertile imagination - with the scaredy-baby Janawee, moody and timid Ginniger, and big, strong, stoic Heroin - that Thelma escapes, and at the same time complicates, her life's crueler realities. The shadows they cast cannot dull Thelma's humor or spirit, however. Nor do they diminish the deft wit and breathtaking powers of observation that distinguish this debut of a new literary talent."