When Hope first chose her name, she
carried it around with her for a month to decide if it was the right one. After all, with a name like that, you better
be prepared to live up to it. Now, four
years later, Hope must call upon the powers of her name to deal with yet
another move, another job and another home.
Her beloved Aunt Addie, her guardian, has taken another cook/manager job
at a café in Wisconsin. Will everything
be okay? Addie says it will and she
never breaks her promises. That is
something to count on, unlike her absent mother who gave her the name of Tulip
and her unknown father. As Hope begins
to open herself up to this small community through her job as a skilled
waitress, she discovers that she doesn’t need her birth family miraculously restored
to find her life. She used to write “Hope was here” somewhere inside each café
as a record of her existence. Now, the
people she has found bring her more than she could ever have dared to imagine. Hope is here.
Teens would really appreciate the
fact of Hope’s imperfect life. They
would be invested in her daily decisions, thanks to the masterful
characterization and well-paced dialogue by Joan Bauer.
As the story unfolds, we see the tapestry of Hope’s life. As details are revealed, they come together
to form the utterly believable and inspiring person of Hope. With her aunt as her home base, Hope begins
to trust those around her and forge ahead.
She learns how she can fit into this community and why she should even
want to. Newbery Honor book, Hope Was Here is a book that will stay with
you and begs to be discussed with others.
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