Tracy Holczer’s debut The Secret Hum of a Daisy is perfect for the thoughtful, careful reader in the upper-age bracket of the ReaderKidZ spectrum. It’s a tender story that is best read slowly, taking great care to note clue-filled literary nuances of character and setting. The Secret Hum of a Daisy pairs perfectly with a wonderfully lazy, cloud-filled summer afternoon with nothing in the world to do but read!

Grace’s mother has died and she is forced to live with her estranged grandmother. Grace and her flamboyantly creative mother had been perpetually on the move, living like gypsies never staying in one place for very long. Mama’s passing left Grace no alternative but to sprout roots and move to her mother’s small town childhood home, residing with a woman she wants nothing to do with. Though initially belligerent and cruel, Grace discovers clues that eventually lead to an emotional understanding of her grandmother, acceptance of those whose lives had been shattered by love and loss, and an appreciation for a community whose affection for her had been present since the day she was born.

I took a pencil and let the words come. All those words about Mama and the night she died that I’d been stuffing down. When they were all out, I folded that piece of a paper into a tight square and shoved it in my pocket.

That was how I saved myself (283).