From Newbery Honor author Janet Taylor Lisle comes a lyrical story about one girlâs discovery of her startling pastâand her search to understand her complicated present.
Joelleâs height and dark skin set her apart from everyone in Marshfield. Itâs no secret that sheâs adopted, but where is she from? Aunt Mary Louise says she came from Chicago on a freight train, but the story doesnât sit right with Joelle. Thereâs something more. She feels it.
Carlos, the quiet boy in Joelleâs Spanish class, sees it. When he tells her that she looks like a girl in the town libraryâs old mural of Narragansett Indians, Joelle canât help sneaking a look. Sheâs surprised by a flicker of recognition. And when Carlos tells her about the Crying Rocks, where the ghosts of Narragansett children are said to cry for their lost mothers, Joelle knows she must visit them.
When they finally set out through the forest, neither she nor Carlos anticipates the power of the ancient place, or the revelations to be found thereâabout the pasts theyâve both buried, and the discovery of a rare kind of courage that runs deep in Joelleâs family.