• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

Vancouver Island, 1979. Winter rains have swept into Eagle Shores Trailer Park, and twelve-year-old Truly has settled in with Andy El, the Salish Elder who took her in after she was abandoned by her mom, Clarice. When Elvis, the thought-to-be-dead King of Rock ’n’ Roll and Truly’s postcard pen pal, gifts her a secondhand guitar, Truly’s growing love of music deepens her bond with her new family — now including Andy El’s nephew, Raymond, Truly’s new puppy, Gracie, and Andy El’s granddaughters, Agnes and Linda.

But Clarice shatters Truly’s world again when she unexpectedly returns, asking for a second chance at being a good mom. Can Clarice really change? Can Truly ever forgive her? If so, is she willing to give up her new life with Andy El to move back in with her mom?

Leslie Gentile is a singer/songwriter of Northern Salish, Tuscarora and Scottish heritage. She performs with her children in The Leslie Gentile Band, and with one of her sisters in The Half White Band. Her debut novel, Elvis, Me, and the Lemonade Stand Summer, won the City of Victoria Children’s Book Prize and the Jean Little First Novel Award and was short-listed for the Forest of Reading Silver Birch Award, the MYRCA Sundogs Award, the SYRCA Diamond Willow Award, and many more. Gentile currently lives on Vancouver Island with her husband.

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