Longing to Belong
Dale and Mary Pat Mullaney
eBook
(Tin Box Press, Dec. 3, 2013)
Longing To Belong is a story about Tess Lawton and her mother whose lives in Chicago have been ruptured by the sudden death of Tess’s father. The abrupt move to a small town in Kentucky to live with Tess’s grandmother is a painful one. The only child in Tess’s new school willing to offer her friendship is Wally Logan whom Tess and the others look upon as a misfit. Reluctantly, Tess is forced to agree with Wally that friendship with him is “better than nothing.”One night, in desperation and loneliness, Tess writes a letter to her dead father describing her unhappiness and asking him to help her. That help comes in the form of her grandmother’s stories about her father when he was her age. When Tess learns that her father built a go-cart for the town’s annual Go-Cart Jamboree, she decides that she and Wally will do the same.In the difficult weeks that follow Tess and those around her who become involved, learn to value the uniqueness of someone who “marches to a different drummer.” Wally also learns some tough lessons about give and take with others. Longing To Belong has the populars and the unpopulars and both groups have challenges each must surmount in order for there to be harmony.