Whistling Past The Graveyard by Susan Crandall

My Rating: 4.6

In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old Starla runs away from her strict grandmother’s Mississippi home. Starla’s destination is Nashville, where her mother went to become a famous singer. Starla hasn't seen her mother since she was three but firmly believes her mother will reunite them with her father who works on an oil rig and they will be a happy family. Walking a lonely country road, Starla accepts a ride from Eula, a black woman traveling alone with a white baby. Now, on the road trip that will change her life forever, Starla sees for the first time life as it really is—as she reaches for a dream of how it could one day be.

While the story has a lot of the uncomfortable truth, this still had a wholesome feel. You feel for Starla but the people she encounters on her journey help to shield her even as she is exposed to the harsh realities of life.