Where the Watermelons Grow, Cindy Baldwin. Della Kelly is 12 years old and lives with her dad, little sister and schizophrenic mother, who seems to be having a good patch. Della finds her one morning picking and tossing the seeds out of watermelons onto the table and floor, but her mother is fastidious and seeing her carelessly toss the seeds concerns her. Dad is busy with the farm, especially with a drought upon them. Della feels she can make her mother better, either by doing all the cleaning and caring for her baby sister, encouraging her mom to rest and reaching out to the bee lady for a honey cure. Della learns that her mom's first schizophrenic episode happened when she was pregnant with her, giving her some guilt feelings. She was hospitalized again when Della was younger. Her mom is talking to herself, obsessively scrubbing the floor, and not acting herself. With nothing helping, Della runs away to the fort she and her best friend, Arden, built thinking that would help. With the comforting support of family, neighbors, and friends, Della learns she can't change her mom, but she can rethink the relationship she has with her.

Mental illness is real and we need to help readers acknowledge that it is not an ugly word. Too often, families work through it alone and it doesn't have to be so. This is an important book for readers to grasp the trials and tribulations of living with someone owning a mental illness. Although, we may not understand the mind of someone living with schizophrenia, we can empathize with the one living with it, as well as those caring for those living with it.

This is Cindy Baldwin's debut novel, and I look forward to reading more of her books in the future.

Every Day After, Laura Golden. Lizzie's father, after losing his job, is gone. Ben's father is dead. The two become fast friends at the height of the Great Depression. For Lizzie, her world shattered when her dad left, leaving only a note and a locket to replace him. Her mother, living within her own silence, is unable to help. Things go from bad to worse when her enemy, Erin Sawyer, envious because of Lizzie's top grades and friendship with Ben, sets out to destroy everything for her: pushing into her, stealing Ben's friendship, faking an apology so that Lizzie will not enter the writing contest, letting Dr. Heimler know that her mother is "not in her right mind," hoping that Lizzie will be put into an orphanage. When a letter is handed to Lizzie, delivering the news that they are now defunct on several mortgage payments, she begins to lose hope. With Ben and his mother moving away for the same reason, she wonders if it will ever stop raining despair on her life. Making some tough decisions, she learns to let go of what she needs to let go of and hang on to what she needs to hang on to.