JoAnn G. (bookwoman28) reviewed on 5/20/2006 + 166 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 6

I read everything Elizabeth Berg writes, and I wouldn't say this is her finest, but the writing has her usual luminous quality and is a pleasure to read. This is written thrugh the eyes of a young teen girl, in the early 1960s, in Tupelo MS, who lives with her beautiful young mother who was crippled by polio when pregnant. The father has deserted, and they are able to live independently, although in poverty, only with round the clock care for the mom, most notably provided by a black woman named Peacie, whose man friend has become active in the civil rights movement. There is a constant threat, not only of civil unrest, but of the state caseworker deciding to institutionalize the mom and put the girl in foster care, for lack of proper caretakers available. The ending is way too 'pat' and easy, but the family and the times they lived in are beautifully rendered.

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