Songs for a Teenage Nomad

Gr 8—10—All her life, 15-year-old Calle and her mother have moved from town to town as her mother has moved from relationship to relationship. The only constant in the teen's life is music and the song journal she keeps to write down her thoughts and the memories inspired by tunes she was listening to at different points in her life. Calle has always kept to herself, never forming attachments, but in the northern California town of Andreas Bay, she finds herself making friends and feeling the first stirrings of love for Sam, a boy with secrets of his own. When she accidentally finds an old letter addressed to her from her father, a man who abandoned Calle and her mom when she was a baby, she begins to question everything her mother has told her about the past. Wrestling with these thoughts, the normal highs and lows of high school, and her developing feelings for Sam are enough to send the surprisingly stable teen into an emotional tailspin. She struggles to understand and balance her past and present, and find just where she fits in. This is an appealing, well-written book, and Culbertson captures the rhythms of teen life with realistically developed characters. Calle is smart, likable and genuine, and readers will root for her.—Terrie Dorio, Santa Monica Public Library, CA