Paperback Edition
ISBN: 9781558615168
Publication Date: 05-01-2006

Afterword by Ann Peters

Cress Delahanty remains one of the most intrepid and beloved teenagers in all American literature. Amid the clotted oil fields and pungent orange groves of rural 1940s California, the young woman explores her family’s citrus ranch, worries about boys, attempts to negotiate the high school social ladder, and suffers embarrassments, big and small, in a tenacious search for her own identity.

"A story of adolescence brimming with humor and charm . . . and much true wisdom.'" —New York Times

"West uses small town life to convey human events that warm the heart." —New York Times Book Review

"West writes gracefully, occasionally poetically, in a voice both innocent and brave." —Washington Post