Come a Stranger (5) (The Tillerman Cycle)

A dashed dream leads to a rash decision in the fifth installment of Cynthia Voigt’s Tillerman cycle.

Mina Smiths lives to dance, so her scholarship to ballet camp seems like a dream come true. She doesn’t even mind being the only black girl in the troupe—that is, until she is told she’ll never be a classical dancer. It’s then that Mina begins to face some difficult truths about race and identity and transfers her passion for dance to Tamer Shipp, the summer minister for her church. The problem is, he’s a grown man with a family, but she can’t stop wishing for more to their friendship than simply pastor and parishioner.

Cynthia Voigt’s incomparable mastery of character and community shines forth in this stirring novel from her acclaimed Tillerman cycle.

Cynthia Voigt won the Newbery Medal for Dicey’s Song, the Newbery Honor Award for A Solitary Blue, and the National Book Award Honor for Homecoming, all part of the beloved Tillerman Cycle. She is also the author of many other celebrated books for middle grade and teen readers, including Izzy, Willy-Nilly, and Jackaroo. She was awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award in 1995 for her work in literature, and the Katahdin Award in 2004. She lives in Maine.