Wolfson, Jill.
WHAT I CALL LIFE
New York : Holt, 2005
IL 5-8, RL 5.2
ISBN 0805076697

(2 booktalks)

After her mother has a nervous breakdown in the middle of the library, 11-year-old Cal Lavender is taken to live in a group home.  Living in the home are an assortment of girls with problems.  Monica is very shy but complains all the time.  Fern giggles continually but also sports a black eye.  Amber is so nervous that she has pulled every hair out of her head and eyebrows.  Cal is not sure how she will fit in with these girls.  But the elderly woman who runs the home has a plan to help the girls deal with their problems.  How can she possibly help these girls begin to lead a normal life?

Booktalk #2

Placed in a group foster home after her mentally ill mother has an "episode", eleven-year-old Cal Lavender learns how to cope with life from the four other girls who live there and from their storytelling guardian, the Knitting Lady. For Cal, this is simply a "temporary detour" from her real life. Despite her initial disinterest, Cal is surprised to find she has a lot in common with the other girls. The young residents of the orange-colored Pumpkin House wear their wounds inside and out.  Cal just feels different. She's sure she is not a whiner, not a fusser; she shows no emotion, and she's very organized. After all, she has held herself and her mother together for all these years. Through knitting the girls begin to learn a lot about themselves and recognize their own goodness and worth.  (Jean B. Bellavance for Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Awards, 2007-2008)