Review: Times-Picayune, Nov. 4

Only a Day Away by Susan Larsen:

Johnson perfectly captures the voice of a young girl, searching for acceptance and friendship. In Sister Paul and the nuns at her New Orleans school, Sandrine finds mentors and models for kindness; in the women who work at her father's clinic, she finds solace. In a new life with her father, she allows herself to feel "small and safe," confident that she has come home at last. After such a bleak existence, she is allowed that ray of hope, that most basic right of childhood.