The Mockingbird Song

Her mother, Honey, left Lindy and her father a long time ago, with little more than a comforting kiss and a whispered good-bye. Now Lindy's father has married the much-younger Millicent, who is pregnant with the couple's first baby and fed up with Lindy's dislike of her. Lindy flees next door to Miss Ellie's house, believing that if she moves in with the elderly woman, her father will beg her to return. But the begging never comes. The baby arrives, and still no one asks her to come home. Lindy has to take matters into her own hands again, and this time the results are happy ones. This book fully evokes the South in the 1930s, where a handsome array of characters reside, all very human and vulnerable. The story has an appealing, domestic flavor that will give readers the feeling of having stepped into a neighborhood where everyone wants to be polite and careful, but really can't help just being themselves. Ages 9-12. (April)