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The Map of Me

Two girls, one road trip - and a poignant contemporary middle-grade story with a nostalgic voice.

Margie is twelve and growing up in claustrophobic, small-town Kentucky. With her mother losing herself in a bizarre passion for poultry (’collectible chickens winked and grinned from every surface. Chicken potholders and pitchers and platters. Rooster teaspoons and chick salt-shakers. Every wall and countertop wallowed in Kentucky-fried ecstasy’), Margie struggles to find her own place in the world. Not easy, when she’s outshone, outloved, outmanoeuvred at every turn by her prodigious little sister, Peep.

When Mom disappears – presumably to that mecca of chicken-lovers, the Rooster Romp – Margie knows she must act. Grabbing her father’s car keys (and her sister), Margie sets off on a road trip worthy of Thelma and Louise to find her missing mom. Narrowly avoiding arrest, death and – worst of all – despair, Margie makes her bid for family and freedom, only to discover that the most important journey is the one that leads to discovering her own courage and self-belief.

Rights details

Rights: Greenhouse c/o Rights People

USA/Canada: Farrar, Straus & Giroux (August 2011)