Ann M. Martin

The summer that Hattie turns twelve, she meets the childlike uncle she never knew and becomes friends with a girl who works at the carnival that comes to Hattie's small town. Twelve-year-old Hattie learns that living life fully means facing both the good times and the bad upon the closing of her Uncle Adam's "school"- an institution for the mentally disabled.

When their little sister doesn't come home from school, fifteen-year-old Maggie and her brother must face up to some deep, dark secrets about their natural mother, whom they must consider as a kidnapping suspect.