~Mailbox Monday~

Here's what I received last week!

If You Want Me To Stay by Michael Parker:

~When Joel Dunn Jr. leaves home with his little brother Tank in tow - in a truck he hardly knows how to drive - he doesn't know where he's heading. All he knows is that his daddy is not right, his brother Carter is being held captive, and he desperately needs to find his mother, wherever she might be.

So begins their journey from the town of Trent to the North Carolina coast, as Joel and Tank search for their mother, fueled only by peanut butter, potato chips, Coke and the powerful soul music their daddy taught them to love. Keeping the faith that she might be waiting for them, they move from one kindly stranger to another, Joel ever certain they are being guided to her door: "I was being passed from person to person," he says, "on my way back into her wide open window."

Caught between the endless idealism of childhood and the sobering tests of adulthood, Joel and Tank take a two-day journey that becomes a trip of a lifetime - to discover, in a stunning conclusion, that the one sure thing in life is often right by your side.

Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 2005

177 Pages

ISBN: 1-56512-484-7

Crossing Blood by Nanci Kincaid:

~From School Library JournalYA-- With a palpable sense of place and soul-stirring prose, Kincaid's first novel weaves a delicate tale about transitions, as told by Lucy Conyers, a native of Tallahassee during the early 1960s. In a small town where civil rights struggles were only beginning to have an impact, the customs and mores of the Old South control nearly every aspect of her life. As the head of a white family living at the edge of the black section of town, Lucy's hard-working stepfather struggles to keep his family solvent and separate from the neighbors. Lucy's dilemma springs from her curiosity, admiration, and finally love for Skippy, the boy next door who is black. With hesitant and clandestine moves, she innocently tries to develop something more than a child's relationship with him, but events in the adult world prevent anything more than the most rudimentary of romances before their contact is forever broken. The sad, but not tragic, ending fits the story in a realistic way that speaks of Kincaid's knowledge of life in this region 30 years ago. This is a coming-of-age tale certain to stir the hearts of YA readers.- Carolyn E. Gecan, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA

Publisher: University Alabama Press; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (July 27, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0817310096

What was in YOUR mailbox today?