With no communication from her incarcerated mother for six years, Harry Sue mistakenly believes that the only way to find her mother is to enter “the joint” herself. As an inmate in training, she learns the vocabulary and resolves to sufficiently harden her heart. Readers will know that is unlikely. Harry Sue devotes her life to protecting the people she loves, notably the tots at her granny’s day care (where a dose of cold medicine in the applesauce keeps them manageable) and her best friend, Homer, who is a quadriplegic living in a tree house to escape his clinging mother. Like Dorothy in her favorite story The Wizard of Oz, Harry Sue is accompanied on her quest by a cast of colorful survivors whom life has simultaneously scarred and strengthened. Written with humor and heart, this is intricately plotted and full of unlikely but charming coincidences and characters of endearing eccentricity. It proves the old adage that the greatest courage is in facing your fear head on. “Joint Jive Glossary” included. (Fiction. 8-12)
