River (Dunham)

It's 1983, and twelve-year-old River Starling's life is anything but normal. She was adopted on a whim and came without a birth certificate. Her adoptive parents gave her up to her grandmother when she was only two, but River is certain her parents will come back. River's hopes fall apart when Gram uproots them from their farmhouse and decides to move to Birdsong, West Virginia, the most miserable town River has ever seen. There she makes an unlikely friendship with an unusual boy and learns about acceptance, hard work, forgiveness, and the love of Jesus. Discover the unforgettable story of one girl's search for a place to call home.

With the discovery of her birth father, 12-year-old River has definite thoughts about how her life should turn out--and that certainly does not include any of the challenges that keep popping up! It's not easy to decide if she should live with Gram, who has been her family for the past ten years, or with her father, who she's over-the-moon to have just met but knows little about. When River gets diagnosed with scoliosis, she fears it will impact her hopes and dreams. River decides to ask God for help. When River makes a new friend, Carlos, she realizes that having scoliosis isn't so bad when she learns what Carlos deals with every day. As this tender-sweet story unfolds, River learns to persevere and stay hopeful that soon she will be part of a real family. Yes, her dream does come true...but not in the way she had planned!