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Whistling Past the Graveyard
In this timely coming-of-age story, set in 1963, a nine-year-old girl runs away from her Mississippi home, finds an unlikely friend, and sets out on a road trip that will change her life. Crandall writes gently but powerfully about what family really means, and how the most unlikely people can come to mean the most of us, despite race, class, or creed.
About the Book
Publisher’s description:
From an award-winning author comes a wise and tender coming-of-age story about a nine-year-old girl who runs away from her Mississippi home in 1963, befriends a lonely woman suffering loss and abuse, and embarks on a life-changing roadtrip.
Whistling past the graveyard. That’s what Daddy called it when you did something to keep your mind off your most worstest fear. . . .Â
In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother’s Mississippi home. Starla’s destination is Nashville, where her mother went to become a famous singer, abandoning Starla when she was three. Walking a lonely country road, Starla accepts a ride from Eula, a black woman traveling alone with a white baby. Now, on the road trip that will change her life forever, Starla sees for the first time life as it really is—as she reaches for a dream of how it could one day be.
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