This week I am featuring Keeping Safe the Stars by Sheila O'Connor. I was given an ARC of this middle grade story by that author when I attended the Spotlight on Books Conference last Spring. Here is a description of the story:
When crisis hits, a young girl becomes the only one left to take care of her familyBeginning:
Pride, Nightingale and Baby are the Stars. Orphaned and living with their grandfather, Old Finn, in rural Minnesota, the children, like their grandfather, are wary of outsiders. They believe, as Old Finn taught them, in self-reliance.
But then Old Finn falls seriously ill and is taken to the hospital all the way in Duluth, leaving the children to fend for themselves. Pride, as oldest, assumes the lead. Though she makes mistakes, she keeps them afloat; they even earn money for the bus trip to Duluth. But when they finally see Old Finn, he can't walk or even say his own name, and Pride knows her days of keeping safe the Stars are drawing to a close. Self-reliance can't make Old Finn well again. But maybe, just maybe, a secret from Old Finn's past might make a way for them to stay together after all.
A poignant story about family and love, Sheila O'Connor has delivered another extraordinary and mesmerizing tale.
It was Old Finn who sent us down the wood path to Miss Addie's. First he kissed us each good-bye and told us not to worry, then he said to stay put in Miss Addie's tiny trailer until he come home from St. John's.Friday 56:
"Did you finally get to see him?" Nightingale set her crochet project in her lap. Nightingale was always crafting some new thing--knitting, stitching, weaving. I didn't have the patience to move a needle back and forth.
I love crafts of that nature. Love the cover of that book too.
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