O'Shaughnessy, Kate

When eleven-year-old foster kid Mo finds a handmade cookbook filled with someone else's family recipes, she collects the stories behind them and builds a website to share them, secretly hoping a long-lost relative will find her and give her a family recipe all her own.

When twelve-year-old Fern and her mother abruptly leave their isolated, off-the-grid community, Fern wants nothing more than to return, but things get murky as she slowly adjusts to her new life and discovers unsettling truths about her old one.

When twelve-year-old Fern and her mother abruptly leave their isolated, off-the-grid community, Fern wants nothing more than to return, but things get murky as she slowly adjusts to her new life and discovers unsettling truths about her old one.

When eleven-year-old foster kid Mo finds a handmade cookbook filled with someone else's family recipes, she collects the stories behind them and builds a website to share them, secretly hoping a long-lost relative will find her and give her a family recipe all her own.

When eleven-year-old foster kid Mo finds a handmade cookbook filled with someone else's family recipes, she collects the stories behind them and builds a website to share them, secretly hoping a long-lost relative will find her and give her a family recipe all her own.

What are the essential ingredients that make a family? Eleven-year-old Mo is making up her own recipe in this unforgettable story that's a little sweet, a little sour, and totally delicious.

"Eleven-year-old Maybelle Lane collects sounds. She records the Louisiana crickets chirping, Momma strumming her guitar, their broken trailer door squeaking. But the crown jewel of her collection is a sound she didn't collect herself: an old recording of her daddy's warm-sunshine laugh, saved on an old phone's voicemail. It's the only thing she has of his, and the only thing she knows about him. Until the day she hears that laugh--his laugh--pouring out of the car radio. Going against Momma's wishes, Maybelle starts listening to her radio DJ daddy's new show . . . When he annouces he'll be the judge of a singing contest in Nashville, she signs up . . . But the road to Nashville is bumpy. Her starch-stiff neighbor Mrs. Boggs offers to drive her in her RV. And a bully of a boy from the trailer park hitches a ride, too. These are not the people May would have chosen to help her, but it turns out they're searching for things as well. And the journey will mold them into the best kind of family--the kind you choose for yourself"--Amazon.

"Eleven-year-old Maybelle Lane collects sounds. She records the Louisiana crickets chirping, Momma strumming her guitar, their broken trailer door squeaking. But the crown jewel of her collection is a sound she didn't collect herself: an old recording of her daddy's warm-sunshine laugh, saved on an old phone's voicemail. It's the only thing she has of his, and the only thing she knows about him. Until the day she hears that laugh--his laugh--pouring out of the car radio. Going against Momma's wishes, Maybelle starts listening to her radio DJ daddy's new show . . . When he annouces he'll be the judge of a singing contest in Nashville, she signs up . . . But the road to Nashville is bumpy. Her starch-stiff neighbor Mrs. Boggs offers to drive her in her RV. And a bully of a boy from the trailer park hitches a ride, too. These are not the people May would have chosen to help her, but it turns out they're searching for things as well. And the journey will mold them into the best kind of family--the kind you choose for yourself"--Amazon.

"Eleven-year-old Maybelle Lane collects sounds. She records the Louisiana crickets chirping, Momma strumming her guitar, their broken trailer door squeaking. But the crown jewel of her collection is a sound she didn't collect herself: an old recording of her daddy's warm-sunshine laugh, saved on an old phone's voicemail. It's the only thing she has of his, and the only thing she knows about him. Until the day she hears that laugh--his laugh--pouring out of the car radio. Going against Momma's wishes, Maybelle starts listening to her radio DJ daddy's new show . . . When he annouces he'll be the judge of a singing contest in Nashville, she signs up . . . But the road to Nashville is bumpy. Her starch-stiff neighbor Mrs. Boggs offers to drive her in her RV. And a bully of a boy from the trailer park hitches a ride, too. These are not the people May would have chosen to help her, but it turns out they're searching for things as well. And the journey will mold them into the best kind of family--the kind you choose for yourself"--Amazon.