Book Rec of the Day 1/9/2007

A coming-of-age story for girls that charmed critics and readers’ groups. Evelyn is a high schooler who lives with her mother in rural Kansas, struggling to survive in poverty and realizing that her brains may be her ticket out. The book is a tender portrait of mother and daughter that Anna Quindlen called “authentic and intelligent” and that reminded USA Today of To Kill a Mockingbird.

THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING, by Laura Moriarty (Hyperion, 2004)