Can one mistake destroy the chance of a lifetime? A girl discovers there are many ways of being true in this magnificent ode to handwritten letters and the shining power of friendship from the author of Dovey Coe, set in the Appalachian mountains of 1920s North Carolina.One true friend. Someone shining. Thats all twelve-year-old Arie Mae wants. But shining true friends are hard to come by deep in the mountains of western North Carolina, so she sets her sights on a cousin unseen, someone who lives all the way away in the big city of Raleigh, North Carolina. Three unanswered letters later, Arie Mae learns that a group of kids from Baltimore are coming to spend a summer on the mountain. Arie Mae loves her smudge of a townshe knows theres nothing finer than Pas fiddling and Mamas apple cake, but she also knows Big City folk might feel differently. How else to explain the song catcher ladies who have descended upon the village in search of traditional tunes and their intention to help save the townspeople? But when the group from Baltimore arrives, it seems there just might be a gem among them, one shining boy who doesnt seem to notice Arie Mae wears the same dress every day and prefers to go barefoot. So what if he has a bit of a limp and a rumored heart problemhe also is keen about everything Arie Mae is keen about, and has all the makings of a true friend. And so what if the boys mother warns him not to exert himself? He and Arie Mae have adventures to go on! In between writing letters to her cousin, Arie Mae leads her one shining friend on ghost hunts and bear chases. But it turns out those warnings were for a reason Arie Maes openheartedness and yearning for connection make for a deeply poignant story, one with a richly realized setting and cast. As Arie Mae begins to see her life in a new light, Dowell (The Second Life of Abigail Walker) examines the clash between city and country life and what true wealth really means (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

 

 

This book is aimed at children at US 5th grade-7th grade.

This book has been graded for interest at 10-12 years.

There are 240 pages in this book. This book was published in 2014 by Simon & Schuster .

Frances O Roark Dowell is the editor and co-founder of Dream/Girl, an arts magazine for girls and has been Poet in Residence at Duke University. She has had dozens of poems published in literary journals, and is the author of two previous children's novels, Dovey Coe and Where I'd Like to Be. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and two sons.