"A girl places some diminutive folk she's discovered into her doll house, then is imprisoned by a giant child herself. A prince discovers that he alone has no shadow. No, these aren't plot points in this masterly new work by the author of "Possession" but children's stories written by one of its protagonists, Olive Wellwood. There are, or course, actual children in the bookOlive's, with blustery banker-turned-crusader husband Humphrey; the Wellwood cousins; Julian, son of a keeper at the South Kensington Museum; Philip, the wayward boy discovered living surreptitiously in the museum, whom Olive brings home to her country estate; the family of brilliant but selfish master potter Benedict Fludd, who takes in the talented Philip as an unpaid apprentice; and more. Like the children in Olive's stories, these children have their notions quietly disabused; one small instantsay, a parent's overheard commentand life is changed forever. It's the late 1800s, with new ideas in the airand it's all rushing toward World War I."--Library Journal (08/15/2009)