Holding Up the Earth

It has been eight years since Hope’s mom died in a car accident. Eight years of shuffling from foster home to foster home. Eight years of trying to hold on to the memories that tether her to her mother. Now Sarah, Hope’s newest foster mom, has taken her from Minneapolis to spend the summer on the Nebraska farm where Sarah grew up. Hope is set adrift, anchored only by her ever-present and memory-heavy backpack. Accustomed to the clamor of city life, Hope is at first unsettled by the silence that descends over the farm each night. But listening deeply, she begins to hear the quiet: the crickets’ chirp, the windsong, the steady in and out of her own breath. Soon the silence is replaced by voices, like echoes sounding across time — the voices of girls who inhabited the old farmhouse before her. Reluctantly, Hope begins to stretch down roots in the earth and accept this new family as her own.

Can the stories of the past help a girl who feels lost in the present find her way home?

• A Moving Coming of Age Story: Fourteen-year-old Hope has spent eight years adrift. This summer, on a quiet Nebraska farm, she must decide if she has the courage to let someone new in.
• Dual Timeline Narrative: As Hope navigates her present, she discovers the letters and diaries of the girls who lived on the farm in generations past, weaving their history with her own.
• Themes of Grief and Healing: Anchored only by a backpack full of memories, Hope confronts the loss of her mother and learns that family can be formed in the most unexpected ways.
• Rich Historical Fiction: Travel back to the days of Nebraska pioneers and beyond, experiencing the hardships and hopes of the young women who held up the earth long before Hope arrived.