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Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver, Faber and Faber, £12, ISBN 0571215769 Reviewed by Maggie McDonald

WHITE letters chalked on a blackboard in Sri Lanka are the first things I remember reading. The pleasure of deciphering that first word (cat, of course) remains with me to this day. By age 11, I read a book a day, and at 14 I was being tested by an irritated teacher and school librarian who demanded proof that I was actually reading my library books.

But there are only so many authors even the most avid of readers can digest, and some evaded me.…

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