(3) 4-6 In this earnest middle-grade novel, Garnet, fourteen, finds faith, love, and family when her mother sends her to live with estranged relatives in rural Virginia. Garnet's evocative first-person narrative voice draws readers in as she seeks stability, rewardingly found in the unlikely home of her church-hopping aunt. Be prepared: a surprising eleventh-hour death tempers the sweetness of salvation everyone has found.

Reviewer: Brittany Schlorff

(4) 4-6 The Blues are aliens on Earth, seeking normalcy and safety. The family, fleeing an angry mob, lands in Fashion City where the Fathers mandate blandness and punish "gross uniqueness." Through her characters, White thoughtfully explores questions of identity, belonging, and the limits of acquiescence. Ironically, though, the alternating narrators' voices (siblings Meggie and David) lack individuality.

Reviewer: Bethany Templeton Klem

(3) 4-6 With a heart-wrenching sense of time and place, White tells of one child's experiences in Virginia's impoverished coal country in 1948. Audrey, based on White's older sister, narrates this novel. Speaking to readers in a voice far more mature than her eleven years, she expresses the hopelessness of growing up with an alcoholic father, a mother suffering from depression, and three younger sisters.

Reviewer: Betty Carter

(2) 4-6 In Way Down Deep, West Virginia, the eccentric townspeople lovingly accept one another. In 1944 a toddler appears, and the truth about her origins is gradually revealed. Though the magical realism that concludes the story feels contrived (despite early subtle clues), this tale of a mountainside utopia has an undeniable charm due to White's strong, cheerful, folksy voice.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2007

(2) 4-6 In 1953, Belle Prater disappeared from her western Virginia home. When her son, Woodrow, receives an anonymous phone call at the very moment he'd been born thirteen years before, he believes his mother is ready to find him after a year and a half. The backstory from Belle Prater's Boy creates depth for this sequel, but this novel stands alone.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2005

(2) 4-6 Ten-year-old Piper's worries about fitting in with her dad's new family and about her mother's dating ring true as she tries to build her own sense of family amid the rancor and change. Her poetry, often dashed off before going to sleep at night, is sophisticated and perhaps beyond her years, but this outlet gives her both recognition and a sense of accomplishment that is hers alone.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2004

(2) 4-6 This novel may have a minimum of plot but it doesn't stint on appealing characters or eloquently crafted images of 1950s life in Kentucky. Tadpole, a thirteen-year-old orphan, shows up on his cousins' front porch after running away from his abusive uncle. Ten-year-old narrator Carolina seems to need his optimistic, rather mystical outlook on life the most. Tad's ability to inspire and charm forges the novel's gratifying sense of community.

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2003

(1) 4-6 White's most moving offering to date concerns Lyric and her pretty, vivacious older sister Summer. In Lyric's eloquent yet natural-sounding voice, White documents Summer's tragic disintegration up to and beyond the eventual diagnosis: schizophrenia. If there is any consolation at the end of this remarkable novel, it is in seeing Lyric mature into a strong young woman, who obviously remembers the time Summer asked her, "Will you write a book about me, Lyric?"

Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2000