Charlotte Garside was born into an ordinary English family in 2007. At birth, doctors were astonished by her appearance—she weighed less than one kilogram, and few believed she would survive. Despite her tiny size, Charlotte proved to be a strong child with a will to live, and she recently celebrated her sixteenth birthday. “People used to say she looked like a porcelain doll, a baby in a stroller, and they still call her Thumbelina, but she’s not a child,” her mother says.

Charlotte has a rare form of dwarfism known as primordial dwarfism. Her parents are carriers of an extremely rare gene that their youngest daughter inherited. Their other children were born healthy and are growing up normally.

Charlotte attended a regular school in East Yorkshire, although she was accompanied by a personal tutor. While primordial dwarfism often involves developmental delays, by the time she was six, school staff determined that she was at the developmental level of a three-year-old, which they considered quite good. Now, Charlotte excels in school, loves socializing with her peers, and is very popular.

Recalling the early days after their daughter’s birth, Charlotte’s parents describe them as extremely challenging, filled with constant fear for her life. She was so delicate that they couldn’t even pick her up.

“People meeting her for the first time are afraid she’ll break if they touch her. But she’s a little spitfire who can’t sit still for a second,” her mother shares.

Today, Charlotte leads a very normal life. She participates in family horseback rides and attends school. When she was two years old, a documentary was made about her, watched by millions of people worldwide. Now, people from all over the globe follow the story of the smallest girl in the world.