A richly layered novel about real and metaphorical journeys.

Deborah Stevenson (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, January 1995 (Vol. 48, No. 5))
Salamanca-Sal-grew up in Kentucky, but she and her father moved to Ohio after her mother's death; she and her grandparents are currently taking a road trip to Idaho, where her mother is buried. As they travel, Sal relates to her grandparents the story of her friend Phoebe, whose unhappy mother left Phoebe's family; Sal finds that recounting Phoebe's story helps her understand the desertion of her own mother, who was later killed when the bus taking her away from her family crashed. Creech skillfully keeps these layers separate but makes their interrelationship clear, and the plot moves along amid all this contemplation with the aid of a mysterious note-leaver, a local "lunatic," an eccentric English teacher, and Sal's budding romance, not to mention Mount Rushmore, Old Faithful, and a poisonous snakebite along the road of Sal's trip with her grandparents. The style is smooth and imaginative but cheerfully plain-spoken ("I wanted to jump up and say, 'Phoebe's mother has disappeared and that is why Phoebe is acting like a complete donkey,' but I didn't"), and the folksiness of Sal's grandparents (Sal's grandfather calls Sal his "chickabiddy" and his wife "gooseberry") is warm and uncontrived. Readers who enjoyed Barbara Hall's Dixie Storms (BCCB 7/90) will appreciate this strong and tender novel about all kinds of gain and loss. R*--Highly recommended as a book of special distinction. (c) Copyright 1995, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1994, HarperCollins, 280p, $15.89 and $16.00. Grades 7-12.

CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, 1994)
Singular, vividly realized characters are at the heart of this moving, funny and astonishing novel. On a cross-country trip to Idaho to visit her mother, thirteen-year-old Sal fascinates and delights her grandparents with the story of mystery surrounding her best friend Phoebe Winterbottom, or Peeby as Gram and Gramps refer to her. But in telling Phoebe's story, Sal is also telling her grandparent's her own - how she is dealing with the changes in her life since her mother left their Kentucky home and she and her father moved to Ohio. The narrative moves back and forth between Sal on the road with her grandparents and Sal's story of Phoebe, but throughout, she privately reflects on her own memories of life back in Kentucky before her mother went away, when things seemed calm and whole. The journey west with her grandparents, who are colorful, quirky characters with boundless love, is healing for Sal as she comes to understand and accept why her mother went away. An added bonus for Wisconsin readers are the stops Sal and her grandparents make in downtown Madison and the Wisconsin Dells as they journey west. Winner, 1994 CCBC Newbery Award Discussion. CCBC categories: Fiction For Children; Fiction For Teenagers. 1994, HarperCollins, 280 pages, $15.89. Ages 10-14.