At any given moment in time in any classroom in any school, there are children with stories to tell. In this book, the moment is the "fourth day of the fourth month of the new year of fourth grade" and the classroom is Miss Cash's classroom and the children are Mae, Henry, Evie, Lucy, and Russell. A writer, Ms. Mirabel, is going to start coming to their class for the next six weeks. She's going to talk to them about words and about writing and she's going to tell them that a story just might whisper itself into their ear. Will they find their story? These children are dealing with a mom with cancer, a new baby and finding themselves. In an interview with T.A.Barron, I once asked him what was the best question he'd ever been asked. His answer was a question from his youngest daughter. She said, "Daddy, is writing a story kind of like living a life?" In this deftly written story we see the intertwining of the power of words and the journey of a life. Words can be mirrors and words can be tools. Patricia MacLachlan has a way of sculpting her words right down to the bare shape and she does it with such insight and such impact. This is another one of those books that gets you right where you live. Awesome! 128 pages