Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane

Eleven-year-old Maybelle Lane collects sounds. She records the Louisiana crickets chirping, Momma strumming her guitar, their broken trailer door squeaking. But the crown jewel of her collection is a sound she didnt collect herself: an old recording of her daddys warm-sunshine laugh, saved on an old phones voicemail. Its the only thing she has of his, and the only thing she knows about him.

Until the day she hears that laughhislaughpouring out of the car radio. Going against Mommas wishes, Maybelle starts listening to her radio DJ daddys new show, drinking in every word like a plant leaning toward the sun. When he announces hell be the judge of a singing contest in Nashville, she signs up. What better way to meet than to stand before him and sing with all her heart?

But the road to Nashville is bumpy. Her starch-stiff neighbor Mrs. Boggs offers to drive her in her RV. And a bully of a boy from the trailer park hitches a ride, too. These are not the people May would have chosen to help her, but it turns out theyre searching for things as well. And the journey will mold them into the best kind of familythe kind you choose for yourself.