Elizabeth Garton Scanlon

Twelve-year-old Ivy Green, whose mother may have run off with a charismatic preacher to Panhandle, Florida, and classmate Paul Dobbs, who wants to see a Space Shuttle before the program's scrapped, team up for a summer adventure that's full of surprises.

A young girl finds a way to tame the winds besieging an old man who lives on a hill above her village.

In a series of letters a student laments the absence of her teacher and daily routine, but she soon realizes there are benefits to mixing things up, and that perhaps having a substitue teacher is not so bad afterall.

"When Lulu's feeling well, she climbs every tree in sight. But when Lulu's sick, all she has is her imagination and a shadow"--