The True History of Lyndie B. Hawkins by Gail Shepherd (review)

After Lyndie’s father loses his job, Lyndie and her parents, much to her dismay, move in with her grandparents, leaving seventh-grader Lyndie in a daily pitched battle with her grandma Lady, “a fusspot who drove a hard bargain.” A bold battler in general, Lyndie is surprised to find herself becoming friends with new kid D.B., a foster boy who’s staying with the kind Spurlock family down the road. As she works with D.B. on a class project involving learning more about each other, her family secrets—about her father’s post–Vietnam War trauma and his drinking, and her mother’s withdrawal—escape their strict bounds. The story is a little overstuffed, but Lyndie’s whip-smart Tennessee-tinged narration is a galloping pleasure to read, and her rage at her grandmother’s restrictions and her parents’ denial about the family’s downward spiral is utterly understandable. Lyndie’s questing interest in history allows her to usefully contextualize the cultural approaches of the 1985 setting to issues such as race (Lyndie’s a tireless fighter against the erasure of the Cherokee presence in local white history) with only a modest amount of contrivance, providing both period authenticity in her school’s teaching and helpful reader mediation. Overall, she’s a treat to meet, and readers will enjoy following her journey.