THE LINDEN TREE

Nine-year-old Katy Sue Hanson, an Iowa farm girl in 1948, is accustomed to the cycles of life and death, but nothing prepares her close-knit family for her mother’s sudden death from meningitis. Although chores and an ornithologist’s visit provide brief distractions for Katy Sue, her father and older siblings, it takes the arrival of her mother’s sister, Aunt Katherine, to ease their grief. Tensions flare at first as the family tiptoes around Aunt Katherine’s different ways, but when she leaves for a few weeks to help another family member, the Hansons realize how much they want her to return. And when Katy Sue’s father confirms her suspicions—that he is sweet on Aunt Katherine—she and her siblings must accept both their mother’s passing and their new addition to the family. In Mathews’s first novel for children, the heartfelt voice of Katy Sue reveals a family rooted in love and a charming look back at the pastimes, foods, manners and morals of a half-century ago. For fans of Sarah, Plain and Tall. (Fiction. 8-12)