White speaks through her older sister Audrey’s voice in this mostly autographical account of life in a Virginia coal camp in 1948. Eleven-year-old Audrey, bookish, smart and still frail from a long winter’s illness, takes care to notice everything around her: the beauty of the mountains, the ugliness of the squalid camp and, most importantly, the people. These are her three sisters, whom she calls “the three little pigs,” her beloved teacher, her daddy, who drinks too much too often but works hard digging coal every day and her mother, who fades in and out of depression but saves coins to treat the girls to movies once a week. When Daddy dies, Audrey is old enough to understand that it’s both the best and worst thing that could happen to their family—and to grieve that any part of his loss could bring joy. White’s precise words bring every character fully to life. Though the real Audrey died in 1993, she shines in these pages—a beautiful, quiet heroine who takes on the burden of remembering. (Historical fiction. 10-14)
