On a long car trip from Ohio to Idaho, 13-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle regales her grandparents with a story about her friend Phoebe, who receives a message from a potential lunatic and must cope with the disappearance of her mother. Beneath Phoebe's story is Sal's own--and her seach for her own mother who left for Idaho one sunny morning and never returned. 1995 Newery Medal winner. ALA Notable Children's Book of 1995. School Library Journal Best Books of the Year, 1994. 1995 Notable Trade Books in the Language Arts.

In her own singularly beautiful style, Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.

Thirteen-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle, proud of her country roots and the "Indian-ness in her blood," travels from Ohio to Idaho with her eccentric grandparents. Along the way, she tells them of the story of Phoebe Winterbottom, who received mysterious messages, who met a "potential lunatic," and whose mother disappeared.

As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold--the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother.