From Where I Watch You

Gr 10 Up—Sixteen-year-old Kara McKinley is a high school junior in Seattle. Kara's older sister died in a swimming pool accident, and Kara's parents' marriage did not survive the tragedy. The family homestead has been sold, and Kara lives with her mother in a small apartment above the café where Mrs. McKinley dishes out healthy fare and the Christian fundamentalism she has recently adopted. Kara loves to bake, and her home economics teacher recommends that she enter a San Francisco baking contest that awards the winner a scholarship to the prestigious La Patisserie School. Kara is secretly saving money for a plane ticket, but she has other secrets as well. Narrator Erin Moon creates believable voices for Kara and the other characters. Profanity and mature situations abound, but the sexual abuse that is eventually uncovered may explain this behavior.