51�Թ�

“These kids are often sort of sheltered and overprotected in a lot of ways,” said Jay Allen, president of Wayfinder Family Services, which runs programs for blind Californians.

“I was abused, and my mom started to overprotect me,” he said.

They overprotected him, and he became more and more a tolerated appendage to a large extended clan without his wide-ranging cultural interests.

The protagonist, Chihiro, begins as a petulant adolescent: Her “skinny legs and sulky face” symbolize her overprotected, underdeveloped personality.

“My father’s dream was for me to become somebody, to be educated. I was overprotected in the house. I was not to do house chores, but to study all the time,” Habte said.