Hattie Owen prefers to be steeped in the familiarity of her small-town life rather than think about the vast world beyond her own. Her family’s boarding house, with its eccentric tenants and predictable routines, is where she feels most at home. It’s so different from the controlling and repressive home of her well to do grandparents who live nearby. During the summer that Hattie turns 12, her world is turned upside down with the startling arrival of an uncle who no one has ever spoken about. Now that Adam’s “school”- an institution for the mentally disabled- is closing. Hattie’s family must deal with a childlike young man whose existence they’ve denied for years. This is a wonderful story of unexpected pleasures and complicated friendships as Hattie experiences life for the first time beyond her Corner of the Universe.

ISBN: 9780439608643