Posted in So Many Good Books, YA Novels

Crossing the Tracks

How could you not care?

crossing the tracksI just read Crossing the Tracks (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010) by Barb Stuber. The story starts in November 1916 with the line: “I’m under Mama’s coffin.” On the next page little Iris says about her mother, “I tried to stop breathing like her, but I couldn’t.
Chapter 1 fast forwards to April 1926. Iris is 15. “I pull my hand form our mailbox, the letter bent in my fingers, my mind reeling. An official letter for Daddy from a doctor. A bud of panic starts to grow in me.
Barb has written a sympathetic character who has to deal with the injustices in her life. Will anyone help her through these tough times? You’ll have to read it to find out.
A bonus on Barb’s website is that she shares pictures that inspired different aspects of her book. She also works as a docent at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, which she says, “simply crawling with ‘writery’ inspiration.”
Crossing the Tracks is set in Kansas.