Ollie's Gift: Inspired by a True Story

By Maria Roncari

Book Overview

What happens when a single, painful truth shatters a child's innocent view of the world?

December 1958. Nine-year-old Marie's world overflows with love in a small New England town, where Christmas glows with family gatherings, laughter, and the comforting certainty that life is good and safe.

But a post-Christmas trip to her missionary cousin in Alabama abruptly thrusts Marie into a world she never imagined-where racism, hatred, and poverty define daily life for some in the Jim Crow-era Deep South-and her sense of innocence is forever changed.

Confused, heartbroken, and desperate to understand such cruelty, Marie's safe world begins to unravel.

Then she meets Miss Ollie. Blind, ill, and enduring unthinkable hardship, the older woman offers Marie something life-changing-a simple yet profound awareness of compassion and love in the face of hate.

Inspired by true events, Ollie's Gift is a heart-stirring memoir that traces the testing of innocence, the awakening of compassion, and the extraordinary power of love to heal even the most wounded heart.

If we do not model love and compassion for our children, the world will teach them something else.

Unforgettable-perfect for fans of To Kill a Mockingbird, The Help, and other stories of moral courage and awakening.

Well, another one of those stories that kept me up. I mean, the way you captured your voice as a child and talked about your perceptions as you were having them. I just couldn't stop turning the pages. I think you have an incredible story.

-Jack Canfield, Author, Motivational Speaker,

Co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul series

I read this book with my eight-year-old daughter. We laughed, we cried. Maria has a way of painting an extremely vivid picture of the world, which exposes just how children think, what they think, and how one interaction can change a child/person forever.

-Heather A, Parent

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FJQDD5YL
• ISBN13: 9798822976535
• Release Date: August 2025
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.5"