Friday, June 6, 2008

Love Me Tender

Love Me Tender by Audrey Couloumbis
The narrator, 13-year-old Elvira, is horrified when her father leaves home after a quarrel, bound for an Elvis impersonation competition in Las Vegas even though Elvira's pregnant mother, Mel, wanted him to stay home. Elvira worries that he won't come back, but her concerns shift when, prompted by a dire phone call, Mel packs up Elvira and her younger sister, Kerrie, and drives everyone off to visit her long-estranged mother in Memphis.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

...The happy ending is never in doubt, but this is part of the novel's charm. Couloumbis's rich, realistic dialogue between mothers, daughters and sisters will induce both laughter and sniffles in middle-grade fans of Kimberly Willis Holt and Catherine Murdock. As sweetly sappy and touching as the song it's named for.