Can the truth thaw Chrissa's frozen heart? It's been three years since Chrissa's father walked out of her life. Too angry even to speak to her mother, Chrissa is obsessed with finding the answers to her Why did her father leave? Why does she never hear from him? And is it somehow her fault, for not being the daughter he wanted her to be? Now, unable to deal with Chrissa's silence, her mother has sent her away from New York City home to spend a year in the country with her grandmother. Perhaps in Gram's house, in the rural community which her father grew up, Chrissa will discover the secret of his disappearance. Instead, Chrissa finds more secrets and suspicions. And, surprisingly, she finds strength she never knew she had. Strength she will need when she must confront the most devastating secret of all.
Author
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor was born in Anderson, Indiana, US on January 4, 1933. Her family were strongly religious with conservative, midwestern values and most of her childhood was spent moving a lot due to her father's occupation as a salesman. Though she grew up during the Depression and her family did not have a lot of money, Naylor stated that she never felt poor because her family owned good books. Her parents enjoyed reading stories to the children—her father would imitate the characters in Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer—and her mother read to them every evening, "almost until we were old enough to go out on dates, though we never would have admitted this to anyone." By the time Phyllis reached fifth grade, writing books was her favorite hobby and she would rush home from school each day to write down whatever plot had been forming in her head - at sixteen her first story was published in a local church magazine. Phyllis has written over 80 books for children and young people. One of these books, "Shiloh," was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1992, was named a Notable Children's Book by the American Library Association and was also Young Adult Choice by the International Reading Association. Naylor gets her ideas from things that happen to her or from things she has read. "Shiloh" was inspired by a little abused dog she and her husband found. The little dog haunted her so much that she had to write a story about him to get it out of her mind.
