With a Name Like Love
Children's Literature: The Reverend Everlasting Love, his wife, and five daughters travel through the South in the summer of 1957 pulling their home on wheels behind them as he conducts tent revivals. Twelve-year old Olivene yearns for a home without wheels where they stay in one place longer than three days. She begins to think her dreams may come true when they arrive in Binder, Arkansas. As Ollie and her five-year old sister Ellen distribute handbills announcing the revival, she sees a boy about her age lurking on the fringes of her vision. From the townspeople she learns that he is Jimmy Koppel, the son of a woman accused of murdering her husband, his father. Ollie gets to know Jimmy and is convinced his mother is innocent. She begs her father to change his three-day rule so that they can learn the truth and save Jimmy's mother from going to prison. As Ollie and her father search for the truth, they learn that small town life is not always friendly. Although the family finds a temporary home with Mrs. Mahoney, a kind woman, Ollie learns that life on the road is not as bad as she had thought. Reviewer: Shirley Nelson