by Joan Bauer
First published 2000
Hope Yancey has spent her sixteen years moving from diner to diner with Aunt Addie, perfecting her waitressing skills while never staying anywhere long enough to call it home. Their latest stop takes them from the energy of New York City to rural Wisconsin, where they'll run the Welcome Stairways Diner for G.T. Stoop. Hope expects another temporary assignment in another forgettable town. She doesn't expect G.T. to announce he's running for mayor despite battling leukemia. She certainly doesn't expect to care about local politics or the corruption threatening to derail G.T.'s campaign. But Hope has learned to read people across countless lunch counters, and she recognizes something genuine in G.T.'s straight talk. As the mayoral race heats up, Hope finds herself drawn into fights she never anticipated, confronting not just small-town corruption but pieces of her own past she's been avoiding. Her skills at serving others become tools for serving something bigger than herself.
Genres: family-life, coming-of-age, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: New York City, Wisconsin
Period: contemporary
192 pages · Hardcover · G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Content warnings: terminal-illness