Synopses & Reviews
- This is a companion book to the Samantha series. Samantha is one of the most popular and best-selling AGC characters. Readers who liked Samantha's stories will want to find out more about what happens to Nellie. It is definitely Nellie's story, but Samantha features prominently and emerges with new dimension in this story.
- This is a wonderfully told story about a much-loved secondary character that readers have asked us about for years.
- The Nellie doll that will be sold starting in July will help bring more attention to Nellie's Promise. The American Girl catalogue with the Nellie doll with reach millions of households, as does our website.
- Nellie will feature prominently in the Samantha movie in November 2004, so we expect that there will be renewed interest in everything related to Samantha.
- In addition to being a story about the tricky challenges of "best friends becoming sisters," this story provides a perspective on families and adoption at the beginning of the 20th century.
- Nellie's determination to keep her promise to her mother, to take care of her sisters, and to find her own path--even when it is different from Samantha's--demonstrates courage, integrity, and a sense of personal responsibility that girls will recognize and admire.
Synopsis
Nellie O'Malley and her little sisters finally have a home. After losing their parents and having been abandoned by their uncle, they are now living in comfort and safety with her friend Samantha's family in New York City. Best of all, Samantha's Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia want to adopt all three of the O'Malley girls. This will make Nellie and Samantha sisters as well as best friends, and it will allow Nellie to keep a promise she made to her dying mother--to protect her little sisters. But when Nellie's no-good uncle, Mike O'Malley, turns up again, he threatens to take Nellie and her sisters back and ruin everything. Nellie is determined not to let that happen, but soon discovers that even her friendship with Samantha has been affected by Uncle Mike's threat. How can all the good things in her new life unravel so fast? Is there a way to keep her promise and save everything she loves the most?