Dovey Coe / Frances O'Roark Dowell / 181 pages / 8 Maids-a-Milking December Challenge

This Edgar Allen Poe Award winner is enticingly packaged in solid purple with gilt embellishments.  Twelve year old Dovey Coe is outspoken about everything but especially about her dislike of Parnell Caraway.  He is a bully, taunts her deaf brother, and has the audacity to court her older sister and attempt to talk her out of going to teacher school and settling for being his pampered wife instead.  When Dovey is found unconscious beside the dead Parnell, she is accused of murdering him.  This is an excellent read and would be an awesome read-a-loud.