Cindy Dobrez (Booklist, Feb. 15, 2005 (Vol. 101, No. 12))
Readers who have longed for a follow-up to White's Newbery Honor Book, Belle Prater's Boy (1996), will be delighted with this fine sequel, in which the search for Woodrow's missing mother continues. A mysterious New Year's Eve phone call on Woodrow's birthday leads him, Cousin Gypsy, and Cassie Caulborne, a classmate with second sight, to nearby Bluefield to follow Belle's trail. The journey away from their small Virginia town gives Woodrow his first glimpse of a "colored" person (a boy in the back of the bus, named Joseph), as well as what Gypsy terms the "hateful" segregation laws of the mid-1950s. The search widens as the trio agrees to help abandoned Joseph search for his father. Characterization, dialogue, and setting are among White's many literary strengths, and she doesn't disappoint here. The friendship between storytelling Woodrow and joke-cracking Gypsy just grows richer as Woodrow faces disappointment and finds hope. If the plot seems a bit tidy, White's young fans won't mind. Category: Books for Middle Readers--Fiction. 2005, Farrar, $16. Gr. 4-7. Starred Review

Kathleen Isaacs (Children's Literature)
Prompted by a mysterious phone call, seventh-grader Woodrow Prater sets out for Bluefield, Virginia, to search for his mother who disappeared from their mountain home without explanation more than 8 months earlier. In her distinctive folksy voice, his cousin and classmate, Gypsy Leemaster, tells his story. On the bus from tiny Coal Station, they and their new friend with second sight, Cassie Caulborne, meet Joseph Lincoln, the first black person Woodrow has ever seen. Joseph is looking for a family member, too, and joins them in their search, although the rules of segregation in Virginia in 1954 make this complicated. Joseph helps them discover why Belle Prater left and where she went. In a most satisfying ending, Woodrow finds out that his mother did not mean to abandon him permanently and has loved him all along. Author Ruth White deftly weaves in the setting--Woodrow’s home in the hollow, the coal camp called Lucky Ridge, and downtown Bluefield. Readers of Belle Prater’s Boy will be particularly happy to see this sequel, which ties up some of the loose ends of that book, but this book does stand on its own. The characters are well developed and enormously likeable. Woodrow’s good humor should attract new readers who will find themselves sympathetic to his situation and caught up in the adventure of his search and may, like the readers of the first book, clamor for more. 2005, Farrar Straus and Giroux, $16.00. Ages 9 to 13.