First published 1998
A young girl faces the hardest goodbye of her life. Her family must leave their farm, the only home she has ever known. As moving day approaches, she walks through familiar places one final time. She memorizes the way morning light falls across the prairie grass. She studies how her father's hands look holding the reins. She watches her mother hang laundry that dances in the constant wind. Every detail matters now because her baby brother is too young to remember any of this. The girl becomes the keeper of their family's history on this land. She promises herself that someday she will tell him about the place where he was born. She will describe the red barn and the endless sky. She will help him understand what they lost when they drove away. Her memories become a gift she will carry forward, a way to keep their first home alive.
Genres: literary-fiction, family-life, historical-fiction, coming-of-age
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, lyrical
Tropes: found-family, keeper-of-memories
Setting: Prairie
Period: 20th-Century
32 pages · Library Binding · Tandem Library