A Long Time Ago Today - Hardcover

Sally Warner (www.sallywarner.com) has published more than twenty novels for young readers, including the Emma and EllRay Jakes series. She lives in Altadena, California with her husband and their not-so-miniature dachshund, Rocky. 

Grade 4-7-Dillon Howell, 12, is still angry with her mother for dying six years ago. Every summer she and her dad make the requisite trip from their home in California to her mother's family farm in the Adirondacks. Dilly resents the trip, the farm, and, most of all, her mother. The only good thing about Lake Luzerne is Sasha, who is the niece of her late mother's best friend, Libby. Lately, though, Sasha is less willing to leave her life and friends in Brooklyn to make the five-hour trek upstate. When Libby tells Dilly that her dying mother left her a letter, the girl is determined to find it and tear it up unread. Her search results in finding other exchanges between Elspeth and Libby; through them, she learns that the mother she always thought was so perfect was actually spoiled and selfish. Orphaned after an accident, she was shipped off to boarding school by her snobbish Granny Tat, who bullied Libby into attending as well. Now Sasha feels bullied into coming to Lake Luzerne whenever Dilly feels lonely. There is strife between the friends until the letter is finally found and read, by which time Dillon has come to terms with her loss and her evolving friendship with Sasha. Dilly's anger is convincing-at times she sounds like the emotional six-year-old she has remained ever since her mother's death. A painful, but realistic treatment of grief and healing.
Barbara Auerbach, New York City Public Schools
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