Crossing the Starlight Bridge

Book excerpt: Young Ray struggles with balancing her new friends on the mainland with the traditions of her people back home on the island in this “compelling portrayal of a Native American family coexisting with white society while retaining its own traditions” (Kirkus Reviews). On Rayanne Sunipass’s birthday, her father gives her a big box of crayons to soften the blow that he is leaving their home on Two Rivers Island in Maine. Struggling to adjust to the changes, Ray and her mother pack up and move to Gram’s small apartment on the mainland. Suddenly, everything is different. Nobody at Ray’s school is like her and with her mother working long hours, Gram becomes her only link to their native Wabanaki traditions. Without any idea of if her father will return, Ray is lost and lonely, even as she makes new friends on the mainland. But there is one thing she knows for certain: someday she’ll return to the island and to all the familiar things she’s left behind.