George MacDonald 
Rough Shaking 

The 19th-century Scottish author delivers a novel of a homeless orphan who finds peace in the company of animals and his own innate goodness. One of George Mac Donald’s realistic novels, A Rough Shaking takes its title from a devastating earthquake that hit along the Italian coast in February of 1887. Though not written in the classic mold of a children’s story, like Mac Donald’s Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood and Gutta Percha Willie, it tells the story of Clare Skymer’s growing up. Orphaned by an earthquake and though seemingly unaware of God, he is a child imbued with goodness and with an unusual empathy for animals. As he wanders the world and is faced with decisions that test his selflessness and compassion, he matures into a man of character and grace. As Mac Donald writes, “His soul was in a better home than a sky full of angels, a home better than the dome itself of all the angels, for his home was his father’s heart.”