Sara is almost too good to be true: smart, brave, and kind, she's saved from being completely unbelievable by the fact that she's just not that pretty. (At least, according to her.) But it's what's...

Poor Becky. Sara gets to inherit diamond mines, while Becky gets to … be her servant. What's up with that?Street UrchinAbout all we know about Becky is that she's "fourteen years old, but was so...

Disney couldn't come up with a better villain. This is a woman who literally is jealous and resentful of a nine-year-old girl because (1) she speaks better French than her and (2) doesn't act scare...

Burnett doesn't pull her punches with Ermengarde: she has "light, rather dull, blue eyes;" she's a "fat child who did not look as if she were in the least clever;" and, when we meet her, she's gnaw...

Little Lottie is a little brat. Sorry, but it's true. We learn that she has been treated like "a very spoiled pet monkey" and that she is "a very appalling little creature." It's not her fault or a...

Oh, Lavinia. She isn't imaginative or interesting or anything that might make her appealing—she's just mean. Like, Mean Girls mean. Check out what she says about Ermengarde: "She IS too fat,...

The first glimpse we get of Mr. Carrisford, the "Indian gentleman" who moves in next door, isn't too encouraging: he's "a man with a haggard, distressed face, and a skeleton body wrapped in furs" (...