Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... Oakdale Library | TEEN FICTION BAY | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Wildwood Library (Mahtomedi) | TEEN FICTION BAY | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
With her mama recently dead and her pa sight unseen since birth, Amelia is suddenly in charge of her younger brother and sister--and of the family gas station. Harley Blevins, local king and emperor of Standard Oil, is in hot pursuit to clinch his fuel monopoly. To keep him at bay and keep her family out of foster care, Melia must come up with a father--and fast. And so when a hobo rolls out of a passing truck, Melia grabs opportunity by its beard. Can she hold off the hounds till she comes of age?
Author Notes
Louis Bayard is a New York Times Notable author and has been nominated for both the Edgar® and Dagger awards for his adult historical thrillers, which include The Pale Blue Eye and Mr. Timothy . He teaches creative writing at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Featuring a heroine as pragmatic and resourceful as Mary Call from Where the Lilies Bloom, adult author Bayard's (Roosevelt's Beast) poignant Depression-era novel traces the struggles of 14-year-old Melia Hoyle and her siblings after their mother's death. Now orphaned, Melia has to care for siblings Janey and Earle, keep the family gas station running, and find a legal guardian so they won't be put into foster care. Unexpected help comes from a down-and-out hobo, Hiram Watts, who agrees to pose as their estranged father. While he spends his days holed up in a tiny bedroom, Melia pumps gas and fixes engines. The deception works for a while, but a competing businessman, Harley Blevins, is bent on bringing down Melia and the gas station. Set in rural Virginia and told through Melia's no-nonsense narration, this period novel evokes the stoicism of mountain people and the ways neighbors help each other during hard times. Although a loner by nature, Melia's uncompromising integrity wins the trust and affection of community members while earning her a steady stream of customers, too. Ages 12-up. Agent: Dan Conaway, Writers House. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
When fourteen-year-old Melia's mother dies, Melia knows that the state is going to try to take her brother and sister away, so she recruits a hobo to pass as their father. Meanwhile, local businessman Harley Blevins is trying to run their family service station out of business. Melia's bold voice and hard-boiled judgment ring true against the crisply painted backdrop of Depression-era rural Virginia. (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* You have read the bare bones of this book before: mother dies, oldest daughter takes care of her siblings, trouble comes, and help arrives but not without complication. Even the Virginia mountain town of Depression era Walnut Ridge feels mighty familiar. But Bayard's unseemly cast of characters gives it fresh life in a story as colorful as a Shenandoah spring and as gritty as the gravel surrounding the family's gas station, Brenda's Oasis. And 14-year-old Amelia is determined to keep that gas station running, even if she only has 11-year-old Earle and young Janey for help. Unfortunately, Harley Blevins owns all the other Standard Oil stations in the area, and he wants the Oasis bad enough to see the family split up. Enter Hiram Watts, a hobo who could be the father figure to save the day, if he didn't come with his own problems. Narrator Amelia tells the story with a folksy twang and uses plenty of cussin', heaps of hollerin', and tons of gumption. Her foible-ridden supporting cast features more adults than kids, and in an interesting twist, they give young readers insight into grown-up issues that transcend those usually found in youth books. Most of all, though, this is a darn good yarn with plenty of room for rooting and more than a few laughs.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
AT SOME POINT, every child must navigate his or her own path in life. Some do this fearlessly and with gusto, while others take a more cautious approach. We can see the contrast in two new middle-grade novels set in Virginia, one historical, the other contemporary. Melia Hoyle, the narrator of Louis Bayard's sublime "Lucky Strikes," careens down the road of life like one of the truckers whose big rigs she handily repairs at her family-owned gas station in Walnut Ridge, Va. A true force of nature, Melia doesn't even have patience for the letter "A" at the front of her given name. ("Mama always said I was in too much of a dang hurry to be dragging all those letters after me.") So when Mama dies of "belly trouble," leaving Melia and her two younger siblings alone, Melia sprints headfirst toward a solution: She spruces up a lazy-eyed vagabond who literally rolls off the back of a coal truck and declares him Daddy. It's a "business arrangement," she explains to the down-on-his-luck former actor (and copywriter and hat salesman), Hiram Watts. Hiram gets a roof over his head, and Melia and her siblings evade foster care. Melia is an immediately endearing character, and her wiseacre narration is both droll and affecting. A mechanical genius who can make a pair of squeaky brakes "quiet as a queen's fart" with only a little castor oil, she faces her hardships - including a villainous entrepreneur hellbent on stealing the family station out from under her - with pluck and ingenuity. And the post-Prohibition setting allows Bayard, best known for his adult historical fiction, to endow his narrator with freedoms most contemporary children can only dream of. Melia, a fifth-grade dropout, drives and smokes and prepares the family's meals straight from the shelves of the station's general store. Of course, Melia is still a child. She struggles with the buddings of first romance, as well as the desperate loss of her mother. It is a lucky strike indeed that she and Hiram have plowed into each other, as each helps to soften the other's rough edges. Although it hits a jarringly dark note in its final act, "Lucky Strikes" is a nearperfect novel, rich in voice and emotion. Much like Melia herself, it is brash with bravado, barely concealing an inviting layer of warmth at its core. If Melia hurries through life trucker style, Eugene (Genie) Harris, the 11-year-old protagonist of Jason Reynolds's "As Brave as You," prefers to bob like a raft on the ocean, observing all that goes on around him without making many waves. Genie hopes one day to be a detective, or perhaps a "questionnaire," and so keeps a small notebook that he fills with questions to Google. They run from the mundane ("If I put sugar on peas, will they taste better?") to the profound ("Can you be trapped and safe at the same time?"). When he and his older brother, Ernie, are shipped off to spend a month with their grandparents in rural North Hill, Va., Genie's biggest concern is the lack of Wi-Fi. Predictably, however, the Brooklyn boys unearth much to entertain them. While cool, girl-crazy Ernie befriends a girl named Tess, Genie forms a surprising bond with his Grandpop, who provides plenty of mystery for an aspiring detective. Why, for example, does a now-blind former rifleman spend so much time in his "nunya bidness" room, where he's made an entire "outdoor" oasis, complete with birds and fake grass and even a recorded breeze? As family secrets tiptoe out into the daylight, Genie comes to understand the depth of the pain his African-American Grandpop harbors from his childhood during the Jim Crow era, and discovers answers to questions he never thought to write in his notebook. Reynolds's previous books have been young adult novels (most recently "All American Boys," co-written with Brendan Kiely), and he has perhaps lowered the stakes too much for a younger audience: Genie can come across as a bit naïve, and his adventures - including an attempt to trap a barn swallow and a trip to the flea market to sell peas with Grandma - are rather tame. Still, it is hard not to cheer as, in his quiet way, he forges his own course, navigating the fine fine between fear and cowardice. LISA GRAFF'S most recent novel is "A Clatter of Jars," a companion to her National Book Award-nominated "A Tangle of Knots."
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-Notable adult author Bayard tries his hand at writing for young teens with the story of 14-year-old Virginia-born Amelia. Raised with no father and an ailing mother, Amelia has been forced into the role of head of household for most of her young life. When her mother passes away, Amelia takes it upon herself to keep what's left of her small family together. With no parents to help and the Great Depression still having its effect on businesses, the family service station is losing money fast. In an effort to keep the station running and prevent her siblings from being sent to separate foster homes, Amelia devises a plan to turn a homeless drifter into a makeshift father. Can she convince the town that Hiram is her long-lost father, allowing them to evade child services? Or will bringing a homeless man into her family lead to more trouble? Bayard deftly depicts life in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Reading about the poverty experienced by the characters will bring awareness to the struggles families endured during the Depression. VERDICT A great read for history buffs.-Paula Bonifer, Pendleton Public Library, OR © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
"Mama died hard. You should know that."Thus begins the sparkling upper-middle-grade debut from adult fiction writer Bayard (Roosevelt's Beast, 2014, etc.). Fourteen-year-old Melia, resilient, pragmatic, a talented mechanic, self-described Gas Station Pagan, and quite often profane, has been running the family's filling station in rural Walnut Ridge, Virginia, ever since Mama took sick months ago. It ain't easy, what with the Depression and younger siblings Earle and Janey to care for, but she doesn't have a choiceEarle and Janey's daddy is in the state pen, and Melia never knew a thing about her own father. Desperate to keep the family together after Mama dies, she hires a drunken hobo who falls off a coal truck to impersonate her parent. Sobered up, Hiram reveals a flair for wild invention, which helps them stave off the machinations of Harley Blevins, "emperor" of Standard Oil, who plots to destroy their business and, in doing so, nearly destroys their family. Told in Melia's brisk voice, with fast pacing and a strong cast of characters (all white, reflecting the demographic of the setting), the story hurtles to a surprising, honest conclusionthe "you" addressed in the first line is a tender surprise.A grand adventure. (Historical fiction. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.