Weekly "GSF Booktalk" #3

Members of the Great Stone Face (GSF) Committee have written "booktalks" to spark interest in reading all 20 titles on this year's list of nominees.  One per week (for 20 weeks!) will be posted here.  Here is "GSF Booktalk" #3:

 Child of the Mountains
by Marilyn Sue Shank

 

“My mama’s in jail. It ain’t right… I got to get her out.” Lydia is a child of the mountains of West Virginia. The year is 1953. Lydia’s cherished little brother BJ was born with cystic fibrosis, and had to be hospitalized in Ohio when his illness flared up. Her daddy had died in a construction accident a few months before, so her sweet mama and her wise old granny were the mainstays in her life. Then Gran passed on, as well. When Lydia persuaded her mama to sneak BJ out of the hospital against regulations, so he could die peacefully at home, that’s when the real trouble began… Her mama was taken off to jail, and Lydia was sent to live at a coal mining camp with her somewhat aloof Uncle William and Aunt Ethel Mae. Poor Lydia was consumed with loneliness and an aching desire to free her mother from jail…but how? And what deep family secret is Uncle William hiding from her?
 (Booktalk written by Luci Albertson, GSF Committee/Bedford Public Library)