“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