Return to Bitter Creek - Softcover

These characters live, the drama they enact is subtle, without cliché, and full of poignant vignettes...A fine book to be savored alone or shared aloud.--Kirkus Reviews

Grade 5-8 Twelve-year-old Lacey Bittner's return to her family home in the Appalachians of North Carolina is filled with uncertainties. She and her mother, Campbell, who was young and unwed, had left ten years earlier. Now they are returning with David, Campbell's boyfriend, to begin a new life. Campbell will make leather items, and David will teach blacksmithing at a local school. Lacey is caught in the middle, wanting to be accepted by the extended family of grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles and yet protective of her independence and her mother's ambivalent feelings. The story unfolds at Sunday family dinners, square dances, and through the purchase of a barn and horse. When David is killed in a freak accident, Lacey fears that her new life has been destroyed and that her mother won't recover. With the help of a friend, and finally the family who has learned to love and accept them within new boundaries, Lacey and Campbell finally return to Bitter Creek. Told with wit, humor, and sensitivity, the story reverberates with feeling and emotion. The Appalachian setting, the emphasis on nature, and the strong, believable characters make this a story that is superb in every way. Constance Allen, Tabor Academy, Marion, Mass.
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