I don't agree with all the choices people make, says the author. You probably won't either. My job is to let them tell their stories. And so she does in these thirteen warm, funny, and sad short stories about people making hard decisions for themselves and for their families: · Like Iona, who accidentally accepts a marriage proposal · And Daryll, just about to graduate from high school, whose mother is eager for him to make something of himself. · And Lexie and Jeb, deep in debt and already struggling to feed their six children, who find out a seventh is on the way.

"A story rich in precise, gorgeous language . . . Tragedies old and new weave a tiny Kentucky town into the center of the universe."—Booklist (starred review) With a Hammer for My Heart is the story of Lawanda, a precocious, poverty-stricken fifteen-year-old girl from Cardin, Kentucky, who dreams of attending college. When Lawanda's friendship with an alcoholic World War II veteran named Garland is misinterpreted by their fellow townspeople, a tragedy calls her future into question. "A compelling, skillfully told story . . . Lyon's finest achievement."—Lexington Herald-Leader "[A] rich tale of healing, redemption, and social responsibility."—Publishers Weekly "Lyon consistently reveals in her work an ability to render the peculiarities of the people and the places she knows best, while at the same time exploring concerns that lend...

" Golden Kite Award winner, 1989 Booklist, Editor's Choice School Library Journal, Best Books of 1988 Publisher's Weekly, Best Books of 1988 Twelve-year-old Amanda Perritt is pitched head-first into adult responsibilities when she has to quit school to care for her newborn brother and invalid mother. She gets an excape, she thinks, when she's offered a trip to stay with her grandmother and her sophisticated Aunt Laura in Memphis. But during the visit, she discovers unexpected parallels between her mother's childhood and her own and comes to understand her own individuality as well as what it means to be part of a family.