Almost Eden

It is the hot prairie summer of her twelfth year and Elsie is at a crossroads. Her beloved mother who is mentally ill has been hospitalized, and Elsie thinks that the breakdown is all her fault. Mental illness is simply not discussed in Elsie’s close-knit Mennonite community and she is rudderless. Nothing Elsie does seems to go right: there’s no pleasing her bossy older sister; she forgets to feed the cat, so her father gives it away; she’s supposed to watch out for her younger sister, but she l