LOOKING FOR LUCY BUICK

Lucretia Buick’s last name is bestowed on her when she turns up as a foundling in the backseat of a 1968 Buick Skylark convertible Uncle Rocco wins in a championship poker game. While her three uncles—sons of Aunt Mim—are shady, controlling and unlikable fellows, it is the five Sandoni sisters who adopt and care for Lucy as best they can in their small New York town. Eccentric Aunt Rhodi in particular keeps Lucy’s spirit and heart alive. A few months after Aunt Rhodi, the last of the aunts, dies, Lucy is 18 and chance leaves her outside the family hosiery factory the afternoon it goes up in flames. She disappears by hopping a train going west, hoping to find by signs and luck the family she thinks of as the Buicks—her own people. Instead Lucy finds herself in the tiny town of Gardenia, Iowa, surrounded by good people who seem to have been waiting to love her. Aunt Rhodi—and the other aunts—appear from time to time to offer advice and somewhat random consolations from beyond the grave, until Lucy no longer needs them to point out what she has found. Sweet and light as a feather but with the substantial charm of music or a summer’s day. (Fiction. 12-15)