Whistling Past the Graveyard / Susan Crandall / 308 pages

Great book!  Thank you, Cindy for recommending it.  Really, if you liked The Help, The Secret Life of Bees, To Kill a Mockingbird, or those Flavia DeLuce books, I think you'd like Whistling Past the Graveyard.  An extremely precocious 9 year old who just wants to be loved runs away from her Mississippi town in 1963 to seek her mother in Nashville.  Starla Claudelle is spunky, sincere, loyal, and brave.  She learns about herself, her family, the culture of the South, and most importantly how to be resilient.  You won't be able to put this one down. Sorry, the dishes will have to wait.