THE BLIND FAITH HOTEL

Fourteen-year-old Zoe is furious when her mom leaves her alcoholic, fisherman husband in the Pacific Northwest and moves the family back to Minnesota, where she has inherited an old house she intends to turn into a bed-and-breakfast. While trying to adjust to her new environment, Zoe argues vehemently with her mother and siblings, struggles through outdoor community service for a shoplifting incident and endures the fatherly overtures of a local contractor who has a romantic interest in her mom. Her relationships with a half-wild prairie boy who loves nature as much as she does, her curmudgeonly community-service coach and a wild chicken hawk help her begin to accept what she calls “the blind faith hotel” as home. The slow pace and occasionally sentimental dialogue may deter some readers, but the detailed descriptions of the prairie ecosystem and Zoe’s unique bond with the hawk help temper the homespun tone. Permeated with themes of home, family, memory and loss, this title should appeal to fans of Han Nolan and Kimberly Willis Holt. (Fiction. 12 & up)