The Search for Belle Prater by Ruth White

This book is a sequel to Belle Prater's Boy, one of my favorite books. In the first book you meet Woodrow, whose mother has disappeared from their backwoods home in Coal Station, Virginia. He goes to live with his grandparents, and becomes best friends with his cousin Gypsy, who lives next door. In The Search for Belle Prater, it is 1954 and Woodrow and Gypsy are in the seventh grade. On New Year's Eve, someone calls Woodrow's house and hangs up without saying anything. He's sure that it was his mother, and when he traces the call to the nearby town of Bluefield, he and Gypsy decide to go there to search for her. Readers who were unhappy with the ending of Belle Prater's Boy will like the resolution of the sequel. A great depiction of life in a poor community in Virginia in the 1950's. Review by Stacy Church