Nurse Edith Fellowes cares for a very ugly little boy.

This is Asimov’s third favorite of his own stories, after “The Last Question” and "The Bicentennial Man.” I would probably not rank it quite so high, but it is definitely among his best half-dozen, an unforgettable tear-jerker with a beautiful ending that doesn’t just tug at the heart-strings, it all but rips them out. It’s one of Asimov’s stories turned into a novel by Robert Silverberg (see The Ugly Little Boy), but the novel isn’t nearly as good as the story.

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