Winner of the Washington Irving Children�s Choice Award
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A Selection of the Junior Library Guild
Star light, star bright�Elvira wishes for a mother and finds instead the father she scarcely knew she had.
�Friendless and dreamy 11-year-old Elvira Trumbull lives with her unemployed, heavy-drinking father�and idolizes the town�s children�s librarian, Miss Ivy, who shares her interest in growing roses and provides her with the female affection she has missed since her mother died.�Elvira is a splendidly realized character and a tough survivor.�Miss Ivy is the wise person we all wish we could be.�The complexities of Trumbull�s character�add depth to the story.�Readers will appreciate the changes they see in him and rejoice in the positive note on which the novel ends.�
�Starred review, School Library Journal
�This compassionate first novel is skillfully related and its characters are perceptively drawn.��They ain�t no guarantees worth piddly squat,� Hank warns Elvira, but in her sweetly comic, determined way, Elvira sets out to improve the odds.�A noteworthy debut.�
�Publishers Weekly
