Books like Up a Road Slowly

Without a doubt, beyond compare, my favorite book ever. Up a Road Slowly is the book sent to me by my closest aunt the fall after my father died. It came with a note telling me how much she treasured the book and hoped that it would find a place in my heart too. Whether it was because the book came from such an influence in my life or because I was still emotionally raw when I read it, (or maybe because it's a Newberry Award winning novel,) Up a Road Slowly struck a chord within me that has never ceased to play on my heart. I try to read it once a year or so, and nearly twenty years later, it still speaks to me.Up a Road Slowly is the coming-of-age story of Julie Trelling, a girl of seven who's sent to live with a spinster aunt in the country after her mother's death. The story follows her elementary school experiences of friendships forged and lost, classmates who are both mercilessly teased and teasers, and the painfully real outcasting of a mentally handicapped girl. The story of Julie's first love and its loss is poignant and completely relatable. (Who among us hasn't out of loneliness fancied a rather shoddy love into something beautiful?) My favorite passages in the book are the one in which Julie learns life's lessons. Irene Hunt, the author, has a way of injecting the truths I wish someone had told me in a way that is neither preachy or unbelievable.