This one is for children with highly unusual families! Told in the first person by Jewells (Julia), this is the story of Sarsaparilla, a large, cheerful, hippy, earth-mother with singular ideas, and her six foster children. Actually, the only boy, Daniel, is her own, but the five girls - Elizabeth, who has massive learning difficulties, Georgie, who is 11, Edwina, an underdeveloped 7 year old, Tilly, the baby, and Jewells herself - have all been 'gathered', just as Sarsasparilla gathers odd belongings. When one day she gathers them all together into a battered van and drives them off to a deserted, derelict, thatched cottage in the country, the children make the best of a bad situation. But Sassy is actually a dreadful though loving mother. Believing in 'independence for infants', she leaves them to their own devices while she paints in the attic and spouts aphorisms. When the cottage burns down, even Sassy must come to the realisation that her chosen life-style doesn't work. Daniel, who is very bright and wants to go to school, leaves to live with his father, Elizabeth, Edwina and baby Tilly are taken into care, and only Jewells and Georgie are left with Sassy in a grim council house. When Jewells' real father, Richard, appears, her decision to go with him seems heaen-sent. But his jet-setting life style and her boarding school are alien, and in the end she discovers her love for Sarasparilla, Georgie and Daniel (who has returned to his mum) is the most important thing in her life. Off they go on pilgrimage, and we know Sassy will never really change. If there are dark moments in the story, the love and concern Jewells shows to her family and her innate humour and maturity will carry her through. A good read for all those who don't live in a traditional family.