Crossing the Tracks by Barbara Stuber

Title: Crossing the Tracks
Author: Barbara Stuber
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry

Publication Date: July 6, 2010
Source: Library

Summary: At fifteen, Iris is a hobo of sorts – no home, no family, no plan. After her mother’s early death, Iris’s father focuses on big plans for his new shoe stores and his latest girlfriend, and has no time for his daughter. Unbeknownst to her, he hires Iris out as housekeeper and companion for a country doctor’s elderly mother. Suddenly Iris is alone, stuck in gritty rural Missouri, too far from her only friend Leroy and too close to a tenant farmer Cecil Deets, who menaces the neighbors, and Iris suspects, his own daughter.


Iris is buoyed by the warmth and understanding the doctor and his mother show her, but just as she starts to break out of her shell tragedy strikes. Iris must find the guts and cunning to take aim at the devil incarnate and discover if she is really as helpless, hopeless, and homeless – as she once believed.

Review: Crossing the Tracks was quite beautiful to put it simply. There was just something amazing about Iris and how she was written. It was sort of perfect.

Iris was my favorite character in the book. You could connect to her in an instant, and she was just a really great character. She wasn't perfect in any way, she had her own secrets and  things that weighed down on her, but those flaws made her perfect.

I loved the setting Iris was transported to. The old farm out in Missouri with the doctor and his mother. It was pure magic. And I enjoyed reading everything about it.

And there was the sweetest beginnings of a romance with Iris and her friend Leroy. It was adorable.

One of the things that surprised me was all of the plot lines going on. There was a huge tragedy and I didn't expect it what so ever! It was really great. Some of the plot lines really didn't make sense to me, but I still enjoyed them.

A great historical fiction, with a beautiful main character!

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