Matchit
Martha Moore
Hardcover
(Delacorte Books for Young Readers, April 9, 2002)
Matchit McCarty feels like a piece of junk. It’s not surprising, really. His father, who has always taken care of him, has left him with a woman named Babe who runs a junkyard. It seems his father is in love and, for the moment at least, he needs Matchit out of the picture. But what sort of picture can Matchit construct of himself—abandoned, unwanted, a bad-luck boy? Babe, however, turns out to be a woman with a heart as big as Texas. She seems convinced that Matchit is the greatest kid on earth. Her junkyard is more than it seems, too. It’s home to a sculptor named Zebby who welds scrap iron into art. Then there is their neighbor, Sister, a taxidermist who is full of splintery affection. From this motley “family” Matchit will learn to create a new image of who he is and where he might be headed.
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