The Box Children

Lou Ann Campbell is nearly twelve years old. She lives on a farm in Texas, and keeps five little dolls in a homemade shoebox house she fixed up for them. The box children are her only friends, the brothers and sisters she never had, the babies her mother was supposed to have but didn't. This is her first diary, and it's hard to hide it from her bullying older brother, her philandering father, and her crazy pregnant mother. But these are her secrets, her hopes, her dreams. And this is the summer she will stop talking to dolls...and start thinking about people and places she doesn't know yet.

The thoroughly original and charming--but never sentimental--portrait of coming of age in the heartland of America.

Described as "equal parts heartache and hope" ("O: The Oprah Magazine"), "The Box Children" is a thoroughly original and charming--but never sentimental--portrait of coming of age in the heartland of America.

Sharon Wyse is a native Texan who spent her summers on a wheat farm until she was 15. A classically trained singer and former disc jockey, she holds degrees in English, journalism, and music, and has received two fellowships to the Ragdale Foundation writers' colony.