2006 ( )

This was a really good story, told from the point of view of a young girl. She moves from the midwest to San Diego during WW2 with her mother and her aunt, who are both running from unhappy marriages. ( )

In this sequel to The Cape Ann, Lark has moved with her mother Arlene and Aunt Betty from Minnesota to San Diego. The two older women are escaping unhappy marriages while Lark is simply trying to get by. She escapes into her imaginative stories after "channeling" the used furniture in their subsistence housing. There are lots of quirky characters to make life interesting and some downright nasty little boys that make Lark's life quite miserable.

Sullivan doesn't resort to trendy literary gimmicks in her writing. She relies on old-fashioned storytelling in these nostalgic tales of triumph over adversity. ( )

This coming-of-age story is set in the 1940s during World War II. The narrarator is a young girl, Lark, who lives through tragedy and drama brought about by the people around her; yet, she manages to stay true to herself. Loved it! ( )

Abandoning Depression-ravaged Minnesota and the alcoholic husband who drank away the family savings, Arlene Erhardt moves to California in early 1942 in search of a new life, bringing along her sister Betty and daughter Lark, the too-precocious narrator of this tale of independence, loyalty, hope and crushed dreams. The Erhardts land in a San Diego housing project, where Lark is left alone to sort out her new world while Betty and Arlene work.