about the book
After her step-father beats her and her mother in a drunken rage, twelve-year-old Carley Conners finds herself in a foster care system and transported from Las Vegas all the way to Connecticut. While her mother recuperates in a hospital, Carley becomes the foster kid of the too-good-to-be-true Murphy family.
Angry, confused, emotional, Carley determines that she will be unhappy—but darn it all, the Murphys make that hard. Julie, the mother, is so kind that Carley feels sorry for feeling bad around her. The father, Jack, is easygoing and easy to relate to, a man totally unlike her stepfather; and even the three Murphy boys come around to having a foster sister. Carley even begins a friendship of a kind she has never had before at her new school.
Slowly, surely, Carley’s world is turning around, and she is finding that she, even she, has a good side. She may have found a family to call her own at last!
But what happens when Carley’s mother wants her back?
about the author
Lynda Mullaly Hunt was born in the late 1960s, and while that was the era of “flower children,” she became more of a tomboy. Being the youngest sister of five siblings, she had to be tough growing up and fend for herself! She loved to climb trees, play baseball, go skateboarding, and go for bike rides.
Lynda attended Conard High School in West Hartford, Connecticut, and went to “UConn” for college, earning a degree in education. During her years as a teacher, Lynda found out she really liked writing just for the fun of it. She would write very short stories and intentionally include grammar and structure errors. Then Lynda handed the stories out to her students, along with red pens, and encourage the kids to give her an “F” if they wanted—just as long as they could tell her why a certain sentence or paragraph was wrong. She enjoyed teaching.
When her children were born Lynda retired from teaching to be a full-time mother. When she realized that her main source of entertainment had become Sesame Street, she decided to get a library card and began reading a lot. This led to her writing a lot, and soon she produced book or two! From there on, it is history.
Sources:
Author website
Author interview : Author Turf
Author interview : Literary Rambles
Also by Lynda Mullaly Hunt:
Fish in a Tree. Nancy Paulsen Books. February 2015.
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