ROCKY ROAD

Yet another story about a gutsy and resourceful girl who overcomes her dysfunctional family environment with hard work and the help of her community. At 12, Tess is the primary caregiver and interpreter for her deaf younger brother; her shiftless father is absent, and her mother, Delilah, suffering from untreated bipolar disorder, makes a range of poor decisions that endangers them all. Evicted from their home in San Antonio, Texas, the family moves abruptly to Schenectady, N.Y., where Delilah hopes to open an ice-cream parlor in the depressed downtown area, and the pursuit of her scheme leads the family into even more trouble. Tess has many worries, but she perseveres, picking up some crucial problem-solving skills from her new classmates and neighbors along the way. The exaggerated Texas twang of the dialogue is grating at times, and the narrative has many bleak moments, but the story is buoyed by supporting characters who are kind, wise and relentlessly upbeat. Readers who connected with Lisa Schroeder’s It's Raining Cupcakes (2010) will find this familiar terrain. (ice-cream recipes, “Ice Cream Flavors and the Inner You”) (Fiction. 8-12)