Crossing the Tracks

September 27, 2010
In this quiet yet resonant debut novel set in 1920s Missouri, 15-year-old Iris is sent to spend the summer in the country to be a companion to elderly Mrs. Nesbitt. Iris lost her mother at age six and was brought up by her distant father, a shoe salesman who is "a detail man in every way except one—the details of me." Initially indignant that she will be sent away while her father plans his wedding to a woman who Iris regards as shallow and grasping, Iris soon finds Mrs. Nesbitt and her physician son Avery to be sensitive, wise, and compassionate mentors as she experiences first love and a new tragedy. Mrs. Nesbitt is grieving her other son who died in WWI, and she and Iris learn to dust their "cellar of ghosts," freely expressing their deepest emotions to one another. A secondary plot about an abused girl is somewhat melodramatic, but readers will recognize, in Iris's story, the vicissitudes of coming-of-age and appreciate the depiction of a surrogate family that provides a warm and safe haven. Ages 12–up.

Starred review from June 15, 2010

When he sends her to Missouri to be a paid companion to an elderly woman during the summer of 1926, Iris suspects that her father is just getting rid of her so he can concentrate on Celeste, his fiancée, who's working with him to open a new shoe store in Kansas City. At Dr. Nesbitt's rural home, however, Iris is able to make a place for herself with the old woman, still grieving her boy who died in World War I, and her gentle surviving son. Having symbolically left her shoes behind on the train, Iris slowly develops her own life and ideas, while corresponding with Leroy, a childhood friend rapidly becoming something more, and still longing for her businessman father to show he values her. A neighbor's abusive ways test her ethically and emotionally but also provide her with a growing awareness of the support and love she does have. As Iris matures, Stuber's tender, evocative style aptly portrays both the evil and the good while remaining emotionally true. Characters are rounded, the plot slow but steady and the imagery engaging in this noteworthy debut. (Historical fiction. 12 & up)

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August 1, 2010

Gr 6-8-Iris, a 15-year-old living in 1920s Missouri, is sent away for the summer by her father to become a live-in companion to a doctor's elderly mother. She has felt unwanted since her mother died when she was six, and now that her father has a new girlfriend, soon-to-be fiancee, Iris knows that there is no longer a place for her in his life. Her position as a caregiver in a rural community doesn't promise to improve her situation, but in Doctor Nesbitt and his mother, Iris finds compassion and friendship, and a place where she belongs. Thought-provoking and tender-hearted, Iris's story is one of a mature young woman who faces life with courage and common sense. Subplots include a romantic attachment, an abused and pregnant young neighbor, and a family death. This thoughtful novel offers strong character development and an engaging protagonist.-Debra Banna, Sharon Public Library, MA

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2010
Grades 7-12 Set in Kansas and Missouri in 1926, this novel tells the story of 15-year-old Iris Baldwin. With her mother dead for 10 years, Iris feels unwanted and unloved by her no-nonsense father, feelings that are exacerbated when he unexpectedly sends her to rural Missouri to work as a companion for an elderly, invalid woman. Her new home offers its share of sometimes predictable surprises for Iris, who for a time feels torn between two worlds as a kind of hobo, a wordshe learnsthat means homeward bound. Though somewhat slow in its pacing and occasionally saccharine in tone, this first novel is really two stories in one that operate in sometimes uneasy and even anticlimactic parallel. That said, the book is also richly atmospheric in its setting and quite successful in its careful development and delineation of character.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)