Joyce Hostetter

"It's the summer of 1959 at the foot of Bakers Mountain in western North Carolina when 13-year-old Jackie Honeycutt first bumps into Thomas Freeman fishing on the riverbank. They hit it off, and Jackie hopes the two of them can be friends. But Jackie is white, and Thomas is Black -- and Jackie quickly learns their growing friendship won't be easy. North Carolina is the focus of the growing civil rights movement, and through his friendship with Thomas,...

As World War II threatens the United States in 1941, fourteen-year-old Junior Bledsoe fights his own battles at home. Junior struggles with school and with anger&#x;at his father, his insufferable granddaddy, his neighbors, and himself&#x;as he desperately tries to understand himself and find his own aim in life. But he finds relief in escaping to the quiet of the nearby woods and tinkering with cars, something he learned from his Pop, and a fatherly...