Down Among the Sticks and Bones chronicles the lives of two of Every Heart a Doorway's favourite characters before they wind up in the Eleanor West Home for Wayward Children - a place where children who have experienced fantasy adventures can be reintroduced to the 'real' world. In Down Among the Sticks and Bones, twin girls Jack and Jill find themselves thrust into a world of monsters and mad scientists, and something they thought they'd never experience: choice.
Children are not formless clay, to be shaped according to the sculptor’s whim, nor are they blank but identical dolls, waiting to be slipped into the mode that suits them best. Give ten children a toy box, and watch them select ten different toys, regardless of gender or religion or parental expectations. Children have preferences.
— Another eerie but beautifully written book about parental/societal expectations and how there is no one way to be a girl (or to be a person in general). It’s so good.
