GRASS ANGEL

Frances Cressen’s mother tries on religions like some people try on clothes. None seems to stick. Now she wants Frances and little brother Everett to drive halfway across the country to a “spiritual retreat” in Oregon for the summer. Frances, whose know-it-all tone reminds one of another literary Frances, demands to stay behind with odd Aunt Blue. While her mother is gone, Frances starts to think about her father, who died when she and Everett were young. Frances has some burning questions to ask her mom, whose own need for answers has taken her far away. No one gets answers, but at least everyone begins talking to one another. A gentle, sweet story. (Fiction. 10-13)