Candy Floss was a special little doll. She wasn't like Impunity Jane, or the Fairy Doll, or any other doll whose story Rumer Godden has told. She was unique, for she brought luck to her owner and she was proud of it. That is, she had brought luck to Jack, who ran a cocoanut shy at the fair, until one fateful day when Clementina Davenport spied her and marked her for her own.

Clementina was a poor little rich girl, horribly spoiled—never crossed but ever cross. How she did carry on when Jack absolutely refused to sell Candy Floss to Mr. Davenport!

But Jack needed his lucky doll. He said it was because of her that he did more business than any of the other booths around him. People came when they heard Jack's music box playing and stayed to watch the little horse go round and round on the turntable with Candy Floss riding on his back. They stayed on to spend their pennies for balls to shy at the cocoanuts set up on posts.

Of course Clementina didn't know how important Candy Floss was when she did the terrible thing, but she probably would have done it anyway. She was thinking only of herself. But Candy Floss was so special she could melt a heart of stone—and Clementina's heart was no stone, even though she behaved as if it were.

Your heart will melt too at Candy Floss's tribulations, and beat with joy when the "happily ever after" part comes—for who can tell a better story about a beloved doll than Rumer Godden, or who can make one live more vividly than Adrienne Adams in her pictures?

From the dust jacket