BooksRock.com - Kids Books At Amazing Low Prices!

Commended for the 2011 Best Books for Kids and Teens

Living in grim Depression-era Toronto with her actress mother, Frannie, Ivy Chalmers has never met her father. In 1931, Frannie sends twelve-year-old Ivy to stay with her paternal grandmother in Larkin, Ontario, while she seeks stardom in New York City. When Ivy's father, Alva, arrives unexpectedly in Larkin, he turns out not to be the Prince Charming she imagined, but an illiterate peddler. Rescuing Ivy from her uncompromising grandmother, Alva takes her with him for the summer, wandering the countryside by horse-drawn caravan, selling shoes.

Back in Larkin at summer's end, Ivy meets teenager Charlie Bayliss, orphaned as an infant and raised by his aunt on a farm outside town. Ivy has a flair for writing and boundless imagination, while Charlie loves baseball and loathes farming. Unknown to both of them, though, is a secret connection they share. When the final pieces of the puzzle of their lives fall into place, nothing will ever be the same.

Peggy Dymond Leavey's previous books include Sky Lake Summer, The Deep End Gang, and The Path Through the Trees, all of which were nominated for the Silver Birch Award. Recently, she published Growing Up Ivy, Mary Pickford, and Laura Secord. Peggy lives in Trenton, Ontario.