A ghost saved twelve-year-old Maddie’s life when she was an infant, her Granny Lane claims, so Maddie must always remember that she is special. But it’s hard to feel special when you’ve spent your life being shuttled from one foster home to another. And now that she’s at the East Tennessee Children’s Home, Maddie feels, well, less than ordinary. Maddie can’t stop looking for a place to call home or for people who feel like home. She even makes a “book of houses,” where she glues pictures of places in which she yearns to live. Then one day, a new girl, Murphy, shows up at the Home armed with tales about exotic travels, being able to fly, and boys who recite poetry to wild horses. Maddie is enchanted . . . Maybe, just maybe, she’s found someone who feels like home and she lets her guard down. She shows Murphy her beloved scrapbook, never anticipating that this one gesture will challenge her very ideas of what home, and family, are all about.
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"Very interesting book with some great characters. Hopeful ending worked but is somewhat contrived. "
— Peg (4 out of 5 stars)
" It was an ok book. I liked the plot, as I remember. "
— Olivia, 11/24/2010" this is a book that will make everyone be thankful for what they have "
— Maggie, 11/22/2010" I thought the book was nice . interesting and very good "
— Ellis, 11/10/2010" I just LOVE this book cuz it has adventure and heart warmming!! "
— Pammy, 6/17/2010" this book is really good if u like addventure and... kind of a heart warming story "
— Mikayla, 6/16/2010" got this from my american friend;) "
— Robyn, 4/25/2010" I really liked this book. It is about a girl in a foster home and she is a big dreamer. She is always thinking that granny lane. Granny lane was her foster grandmother when her parents died. Maddie is the main character and her freinds are murphey, dianah, Logan, and little Rickey Ray. "
— Annie, 2/1/2010" It was boring for me. I wouldn't read this book again. "
— Yuki, 12/3/2009" This book is OK. Not that good. I wouldn't read it again. "
— Sarah, 12/3/2009" a different sort of book about friendship that is sweet "
— Conley, 9/23/2009Frances O’Roark Dowell is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of Dovey Coe, which won the Edgar Award and the William Allen White Award; Where I’d Like to Be; the bestselling The Secret Language of Girls and its sequels The Kind of Friends We Used to Be and The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away; Chicken Boy; Shooting the Moon, which was awarded the Christopher Medal; the Phineas L. MacGuire series; Falling In; the teen novel Ten Miles Past Normal; and the critically acclaimed The Second Life of Abigail Walker. She lives with her husband and two sons in Durham, North Carolina.