“I want to jump out of the car as it rushes along and wrap myself in a row of sheets hanging so low their feet tap the grass. I want to hide because my life, if it were a clothesline, would be the one with a sweater dangling by one sleeve, a blanket dragging in the mud, and a sock, unpaired and alone, tumbling to the road with the wind at its heel.
But I don’t say anything as we head east.
My mother is a look-away.”
Cornelia
Published by Knopf Books for Young Readers
Awards
ALA Schneider Family Book Award
Booklist Top 10 First Novels for Youth
ALA Best Books for Young Adults
IRA Notable Book
New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age
Texas Library Association TAYSHAS High School Reading List
Mainely Girls Maine Middle School Reading List
Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers Master List
Sequoyah Young Adult Book Award Master List
South Carolina Young Adult Book Master List
Reviews
★ “This quiet, beautiful first novel makes the search for home a searing drama.”
Booklist, starred review
★ “Poetically portrays the human potential to fly after emerging from a cocoon of neglect.”
School Library Journal, starred
“A stunning story.”
The Denver Post
“It is Fusco’s triumph to make what could have been a sticky-sweet narrative into a tart and dry-eyed tale of grace and personal salvation.”
The Providence Journal