Sugaring off
(Book)

Partially deaf, seventeen-year-old Owl feels the most free hiking the forested areas around her family's New Hampshire farm, but the apperance of Cody, a magnetic young man hired to help with the sugaring off, forces Owl to make difficult decisions about their relationship and her relationship with her family.

Owl has always been her freest self in the mountains, tracking, hiking, and exploring the steep forested acres of her aunt and uncles maple sugar farm. They never speak of the childhood tragedy that left her partially deaf and sent her father to jail. All Owl wants is to stay safe at the farm, her favorite place in the world, her refuge from those who would treat her differently. Owls sheltered existence is blown wide open by Codythe magnetic, dangerous young man hired to help with the seasons sugaring off. Cody seems to see the real her, to look past her hearing loss in a way no one else does. Together, they find comfort in their similarities and exhilaration in their differences, and risk a romance their families are desperate to stop. But then Owl hears her father will be released from prison, and a seemingly motiveless murder shakes the foundations of her small town. When the crime draws all eyes to Cody, Owl realized he is in far more serious trouble than anyone knowsand its followed him to her mountain.

Ages 12 and up.,Algonquin.

Grades 7-9.,Algonquin.