Books with author Lisa Tucker McElroy

Lizzie's mom is serving in the military overseas, and Lizzie really misses her. While they are apart, Lizzie and her mom write letters to each other to help make the separation easier. Lizzie asks her mom to hurry up and defend freedom so she can come home soon. It's hard when her mom misses Lizzie's soccer championship and her birthday. Throughout the story, Lizzie draws maps to show her mother the important things in her life--like the new ice cream store, her new friend's house, the family's Thanksgiving airplane trip to Florida, and the stars in the sky. While Lizzie doesn't know exactly where her mom is, they both can wish on the same star.

A moving, evocative tale of love, grief, and sisterhood from the author of the “brilliant, tender, and riveting” (John Dufresne, author of I Don’t Like Where This Is Going) The Winters in Bloom.She can hear the music in people’s souls. Mary Beth and her younger sister Leeann are trying to support themselves in their small Southern hometown. Mary Beth works to make ends meet by practicing her own unique talent: “song reading.” By making sense of the song lyrics people have stuck in their heads, Mary Beth can help people make sense of their lives. In no time, Mary Beth’s readings have the entire town singing her praises, including the handsome scientist Ben, who falls hard for Mary Beth and her unearthly intuition. What happens when she can’t make out the lyrics? When Mary Beth reveals a long-muted secret in the community, however, she turns off the music and gives up song reading for good. Soon everyone’s lives are out of tune: Leeann worries she’ll never graduate from high school, and Ben can’t conduct his experiments. Without Mary Beth’s music, the town’s silence is louder than ever. Could it be that all the lyrics to all those foolish love songs really aren’t so foolish after all?