Fourteen-year-old Marley's life is turned upside down the day her family receives a letter asking for her baptismal record. Marley learns that her Mom and Dad are really her Aunt and Uncle. Her brother is actually her cousin. If those basic truths are false, what in life can she trust? Who is she really, and what is "family?" Beautiful and heart-reaching, this novel is a Coretta Scott King Award winner.
160 pages 978-1442403420 Ages 12 and up
Keywords: identity, family, relatives, trust, African American, African American author, Coretta Scott King Author Award, 11 year old, 12 year old, 13 year old
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You never know what's gonna come down -- in Heaven. At fourteen, Marley knows she has Momma's hands and Pops's love for ice cream, that her brother doesn't get on her nerves too much, and that Uncle Jack is a big mystery. But Marley doesn't know all she thinks she does, because she doesn't know the truth. And when the truth comes down with the rain one stormy summer afternoon, it changes everything. It turns Momma and Pops into liars. It makes her brother a stranger and Uncle Jack an even bigger mystery.
All of a sudden, Marley doesn't know who she is anymore and can only turn to the family she no longer trusts to find out. Truth often brings change. Sometimes that change is for the good. Sometimes it isn't. Coretta Scott King award-winning author Angela Johnson writes a poignant novel of deception and self-discovery -- about finding the truth and knowing what to do when truth is at hand.-----from the publisher
