Once Upon a Time a Sparrow — Mary Avery Kabrich

School psychologist Dr. Mary Meyers evaluates students who fail to fit in. While skillfully responding to these children's emotional needs, she is entirely sealed off from her own. When her mother dies, Mary discovers an artifact from her past, the tattered black hooded coat she had worn throughout third grade. Reuniting with the coat sets in motion a stream of long-forgotten memories of her childhood and her nine-year-old self, a girl with a love of stories who struggled to read even the simplest words. Overwhelmed with intrusions from a past filled with failure, Mary finds her professional practice beginning to crumble as she struggles to separate herself from who she once was. Once Upon a Time a Sparrow artfully weaves past and present into a fabric that reveals the dangers of denying the past, how our imperfections can make us whole, and the abundant possibility of transformation at any stage in life.