Go To Author

Frances O'Roarke Dowell is a go-to-author of mine and so after finishing Chicken Boy I picked up Where I Want to Be. I am burning through the books this year, at 50 already, but who knows what the rest of the year will show, but for now, I am doing well.
This is a pretty sad book, dealing with foster care and all of its sadness and mess.  Maddie is a young girl living in a group home, after her mother gave her up and the old woman she was staying with lost her eyesight and was no longer able to care for her.  Maddie has great spirit and you can't help but love her.  The book centers around her befriending a new girl in the home and picking a group of friends who build a fort in the yard of a boy from school.  The boy has a family, but it is easy to see that he is also not really part of a home either, as his parents pretty much ignore him.  The book raises a lot of good questions about what makes a house a home and what makes a family.  Good, sweet story.
Oh yeah!  It is set in Tennessee.