Providence - Softcover

Cocca, Lisa Colozza

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1440590621 ISBN 13: 9781440590627

Publisher: S&S Books for Young Readers, 2015

Synopsis

The eldest of ten children on a dirt-poor farm, Becky trudges through life as a full-time babysitter, trying to avoid her father's periodic violent rages. When the family's barn burns down, her father lays the blame on Becky, and her own mother tells her to run for it. Run she does, hopping into an empty freight car. There, in a duffel bag, Becky finds an abandoned baby girl, only hours old. After years of tending to her siblings, sixteen-year-old Becky knows just what a baby needs. This baby needs a mother. With no mother around, Becky decides, at least temporarily, this baby needs her. When Becky hops off the train in a small Georgia town, it's with baby "Georgia" in her arms. When she meets Rosie, an eccentric thrift-shop owner, who comes to value and love Becky as no one ever has, Becky rashly claims the baby as her own. Not everyone in town is as welcoming as Rosie, though. Many suspect Becky and her baby are not what they seem. Among the doubters is a beautiful, reclusive woman with her own terrible loss and a long history with Rosie. As Becky's life becomes entangled with the lives of the people in town, including a handsome boy who suspects Becky is hiding something from her past, she finds her secrets more difficult to keep. Becky should grab the baby and run, but her newfound home and job with Rosie have given Becky the family she's never known. Despite her guilt over leaving her mother alone, she is happy for the first time. But it's a happiness not meant to last. When the truth comes out, Becky has the biggest decision of her life to make. Should she run away again? Should she stay--and fight? Or lie? What does the future hold for Becky and Georgia? With a greatness of heart and a stubborn insistence on hope found in few novels of any genre, Providence proves that home is where you find it, love is an active verb, and family is more than just a word.

"When 16-year-old Becky Miller rescues an abandoned newborn, a nontraditional family is born, attracting other warm-hearted women into its folds. Reading Providence is like cozying up with longtime friends in front of a homey fire." --Sherry Shahan, author of Skin and Bones (Albert Whitman & Co.)

"A beautifully written tale about trying to make the right choice when there might not be one." --Wendy Mass, author of A Mango-Shaped Space (Little Brown Books for Young Readers)

About this title

About the Author:

Lisa works full-time as a freelance writer/editor of curriculum materials and school/library books. Her love for children's and young adult literature developed over years of working as a teacher and a school librarian, as well as years of reading to her own children. Providence is her first novel.

From Booklist:

After hopping a freight train, Becky finds a newborn baby in the corner of the car. She is fleeing the harsh responsibilities of her hardscrabble South Carolina farm life, which seems to hold no future for her. And yet, as the oldest of 10, Becky’s well-honed maternal instincts kick in, and she selflessly takes on the ominous responsibility of caring for Baby Girl. The railroad tracks take them to Watson’s Grove, and Becky embarks on a new beginning, landing into the soft and trusting world of Rosie and her resale shop, Secondhand Rose. Becky adeptly makes herself indispensable with her artistic handiwork, while darling Baby Girl, aka Georgia Rose, warms every heart in town. Rosie, Becky, and Georgia Rose create a family built of mutual need, love, and kindness in this gentle tale of life in nostalgic small-town America. In her debut novel, Cocca portrays a community of sympathetic characters in Watson’s Grove, Georgia, who believe in the promise of life’s second chances. Grades 7-12. --Gail Bush

About this edition

• Publisher: S&S Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1440590621
• ISBN 13: 9781440590627
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256