Hachette Book of the Week – Tiny Prisoners

Two siblings trapped in a world of abuse.

One woman determined to free them.

Evie and Elliot are scrawny, filthy and wide-eyed with fear are the Tiny Prisoners who they turn up on Maggie Hartley‘s doorstep.

Aged just two and three years old, this brother and sister have been through a horrific home life – abuse, violence and neglect have defined their young lives.

They came into foster care with Maggie when their mother was committed to a psychiatric hospital and their father was imprisoned.

Gradually unpicking what happened to them, Maggie tells their shocking true story and how she helps them to heal and grow.
They slowly learn to overcome their agoraphobia (the children never left the house before), gain basic life skills that we all take for granted and finally let themselves smile again.

From emotionally scarred and damaged little children, we see how – with love, warmth and dedication – Maggie transforms their lives after two years in her care.

Evie and Elliot grow into loving, kind children – and in an emotional and redemptive ending, we see them happily adopted by a loving couple unable to have children of their own.

Maggie Hartley has fostered more than 300 children while being a foster carer for over twenty years. Taking on the children other carers often can’t cope with, Maggie helps children that are deemed ‘unadoptable’ because of their behavior or the extreme trauma that they’ve been through. She’s looked after refugees, supported children through sexual abuse and violence court cases, cared for teenagers on remand and taught young mums how to parent their newborn babies.

Tiny Prisoners by Maggie Hartley, published by Hachette Australia, is available now from Dymocks.

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