This sparkling middle-grade debut is a classic-in-the-making! Maybelle Lane
is looking for her father, but on the road to Nashville she finds so much
more: courage, brains, heart--and true friends. Eleven-year-old Maybelle
Lane collects sounds. She records the Louisiana crickets chirping, Momma
strumming her guitar, their broken trailer door squeaking. But the crown
jewel of her collection is a sound she didn't collect herself: an old
recording of her daddy's warm-sunshine laugh, saved on an old phone's
voicemail. It's the only thing she has of his, and the only thing she knows
about him. Until the day she hears that laugh--his laugh--pouring out of
the car radio. Going against Momma's wishes, Maybelle starts listening to
her radio DJ daddy's new show, drinking in every word like a plant leaning
toward the sun. When he announces he'll be the judge of a singing contest
in Nashville, she signs up. What better way to meet than to stand before
him and sing with all her heart? But the road to Nashville is bumpy. Her
starch-stiff neighbor Mrs. Boggs offers to drive her in her RV. And a bully
of a boy from the trailer park hitches a ride, too. These are not the
people May would have chosen to help her, but it turns out they're
searching for things as well. And the journey will mold them into the best
kind of family--the kind you choose for yourself.