Author Description

which of a wind The deadly F-5 tornado of April 3, 1974-destroying a good part of their town and highlighting the shortcomings of their mothers-leads to a possible friendship between two barely acquainted Xenia Ohio girls who are unaware they share some of the same worst fears, including the dread of ending up in a foster home. Willa Wampler, crammed with her family into a small house in the north end of town where she shares one tiny bedroom with her four siblings, has no idea her Central Junior High School classmate, Brianna Crawford, is secretly living alone under an assumed identity in a solitary little house south of town. Emotionally abandoned by the older sister who was once as close as a twin, Willa-lying in bed awake with worry-listens to the sleeping sounds of her brothers and sisters while feeling almost as alone as Brianna who goes to bed at night and gets up in the morning to the sound of nothing but her own breathing. Trying to protect the mothers who have fallen short of protecting them, both girls have taken on the lonely charge of keeping family secrets as they enter their teen years deprived of an honest attempt at learning how to deal with the world. Surviving the tornado physically unscathed but still caught up in the maelstrom of family turbulence, the two seventh graders struggle to hang on to emerging feelings of personal worth as they realize that their mothers may never change.