A Million Ways Home by Dianne Doris Winget

Dianna's Website  8.4/10

I thought I was being a little harsh about Loot but I read this one in no time at all, and liked it a lot.  

I had many emotion while I read this story.  I knew what I thought was going to happen, but it still never prepared me for the outpouring of my own tears and feelings.  Ms. Winget does a phenomenal job of pulling the reader in to the story and making them feel. You know that Poppy is going to do something "impulsive" but you still root for her and understand why.  She actually doesn't realize how lucky she is, through all the tragedy.  The idiom and title, A Million Ways Home, becomes more and more applicable the further you read in the story, though the words are never used in the text.

Sensory detail is a great writer's craft to bring out in this book. Dianna uses them exactly how they work best, to show how they bring us memories and keep us grounded.  She use senses that are harder for us to write about...smell and taste.  Learn from her great examples:

Sound:  The social worker is always connected with the sound of her shoes..."I opened them again when the familiar tap-tap-tap came close to the car."
"I could tell when she reached the elevator, because the tapping stopped."

Taste:"Goey sweetness filled my mouth and made me feel better, but not for long."
"But I chewed slowly, savoring each greasy bite."
"It was creamy and sweet and triggered a bright memory."


Smell:  " I coughed my way through the diesel fumes and over to the sidewalk."
"I took a breath of the cool, pine-scented air and tried not to panic."
"I thought of the man's weird eyes and the awful smell of his breath and felt another wave of nausea."

An entire paragraph dedicated to smell:
    "The bag from Miss Austin still sat by the door.  I went over and pulled out my flannel blanket.  I pressed it to my nosse, longing for the sweet smell of lavender drops Grandma Bet always added to the washing machine.  But it didn't smell like lavender anymore, it didn't smell like home at all.  It smelled like the center, and it made me want to cry again."

THEME TIME!!!

As usual, a theme is beginning to arise in these nominees... Alternative types of homes, heroic actions by young main characters, and missing parents??  Poppy in this book is being raised by Grandma Beth  and moved into a new living situation when Grandma has a stroke, August of The Junction of Sunshine and Lucky,  lives with Grandpa Gus in a poor part of town that is being targeted, and decorates with "trash,"  Zane's dad dies and he goes to Louisiana to meet Great Grandma Trissy, and then survives Hurricane Katrina, Marches father dies in Loot, travels with his newly found sister and new friends to find missing jewels and save them all,  in Red Berries..., Tomi's father is taken away and they live in a relocation camp and she helps her family remain sane,  Rose, who suffers from Asperger's in Rain, Reign, makes sense of her odd world, while living with a father who does not understand her compulsions and survives many emotional challenges including a hurricane, and in Space Case, although Dashiell, lives with a traditional family, he lives, on the moon and solves a murder mystery.  I will be looking for these three connections in the last five books I have left.  :-)  It is written in 1st person.