Make Me a Home

Children's Bookwatch, April, 2008

Make Me a Home

Tamra Norton

Bonneville Books

c/o Cedar Fort, Inc.

2373 W. 700 S., Springville, UT 84663

9781599551135, $12.99 www.cedarfort.com

Author and mother of seven Tamra Norton earned the Utah Commission on Literacy's "Book of the Month" award in April 2006 for young adult novel "Make Me a Memory." Now, in Make Me a Home, Norton examines the difficult realities a young person must deal with when a loved one is deployed abroad for an extended period. Allie Claybrook spent most of her sixth-grade year as the 'new kid' of her elementary school; when Ivy Peterson and her handsome older brother Ty move to town, Allie befriends Ivy--but Celeste the most popular girl in Allie's class, is as interested in Ty as Allie is! Make Me a Home weaves a tapestry of daily life as Allie learns ways to cope with her father's deployment to Iraq and Ivy weathers her parents' divorce. Together, Allie and Ivy learn the importance of friendship and a place to call home. Make Me a Home does not shy away from serious issues, yet is thoroughly accessible and amenable to young adults. Highly recommended especially for school libraries, and as a the starting point for discussions with young people who must face the difficulty of the separation from or loss of a central figure in their life.