At fifteen, Tamara has survived the foster-care system through brains, will and attitude. Now there's high school to get through, along with her teacher's latest community project -- volunteering at the local seniors' home. Tamara doubts she can endure either the residents or the smells.

Then she's assigned to Jean Barclay, a cranky, wealthy and frail former schoolteacher. As the two size one another up, they realize each is the key to achieving their own very different goals. Miss Barclay wants to attend an opera in Seattle -- a trip doctors insist she's too weak to undertake. Tamara wants to enroll in modeling school in Vancouver -- an expense she can't begin to afford. They plan the road trip of a lifetime -- but can these two bossy, manipulative women keep from throttling each other before their goals are realized?

From his earliest years, Glen Huser has loved to write and read and draw and paint. That’s when he wasn’t losing himself in the dark cocoon of a movie theatre or picking out old-time radio standards and Broadway musical hits on the piano. As a teacher and school librarian for a lengthy career in Edmonton, he worked his passions for art and literature into school projects such as Magpie, an in-house quarterly featuring writing and art from students. In his off hours, he wrote movie reviews for a local weekly, children’s book reviews for The Edmonton Journal, and got his small ink landscapes into galleries. As he worked on a degree in Education and then a Masters in English at the U of A, he had the good fortune to work under the tutelage of Rudy Wiebe, Margaret Atwood and W. O. Mitchell. For several years he was a sessional lecturer in children’s literature, information studies and creative writing at the U of A in Edmonton and UBC in Vancouver. His first novel Grace Lake was shortlisted for the 1992 W.H. Smith-Books in Canada First Novel Award. He has written several books for young adult readers including the Governor General’s Award-winner Stitches and the GG finalist Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen. Short stories have appeared in a number of literary magazines, most recently Plenitude and Waterloo University’s The New Quarterly. Glen’s current home is Vancouver where he continues to write as well as pursue interests in art and film studies.

Glen Huser's profile page

• Long-listed, Chocolate Lily Award
• Long-listed, OLA Red Maple Award
• Short-listed, Manitoba Young Reader's Choice Award
• Short-listed, Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Award
• Short-listed, Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize
• Commended, SSLI Honor Book
• Commended, Maine State Library Cream of the Crop List
• Commended, OLA Best Bets - Top 10 Fiction for Young Adults
• Commended, CCBC Our Choice (Starred Selection)
• Short-listed, Governor General's Literary Awards: Text

...[Huser]'s portrait of two outsiders is an affecting and involving one...The road trip is entertaining, and revelatory, and Huser realistically gives his heroines only some of what they wish for.

Horn Book

Both characters emerge as strongly sympathetic rebels; readers will applaud their outlaw partnership and be glad that Tamara, at least, receives forgiveness and a fresh start.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

This is a super cross-generations book!...This is a well-done story with strong characters who will appeal to middle school readers.

Library Media Connection