A Friend at Midnight Book

Lily has settled into life in Connecticut after her parent's divorce but it's been harder on her eight-year-old brother Michael. After their mother remarries, her brother chooses to go live with his father in Washington, D.C., until the day he calls home from the Baltimore-Washington Airport where his father has abandoned him.

Lily is home babysitting her baby stepbrother when she answers the phone. She has no idea the extent to which her faith in God will be tested. There is no choice for Lily. She will rescue Michael, but will she be able to rescue herself from the bitterness and anger she feels?

Publishers Weekly

Cooney's (Whatever Happened to Janie?) latest tale starts with a jolt of adrenaline: an unnamed adult takes Michael to the airport, says something so terrible the boy knows "right away that he must not think about it," and drives off, leaving the youngster without money or an airline ticket. The boy must make his own way back to the New York suburb where, until just a few weeks ago, he lived with his mother, stepfather, two sisters and toddler half-brother. Several pages later Cooney reveals that Michael is just eight years old and the man who abandoned him was his own father, Dennis, who coolly explains, "You're not the son I had in mind." Riding to the rescue is Michael's sister Lily, 15, who manages to get her brother home without any adult help and, when Michael asks her to, promises never to tell what their father did and said. Horrifying though Michael's situation is, this is ultimately Lily's story, one that centers on her heart-splitting struggle to balance her loyalty to Michael's wishes with her fierce desire to reveal the ugly truth about their father. Matters come to a head a year later, when Lily's older sister, determined to have Dennis participate in her upcoming wedding, tries to insist that Lily make peace with their father. Wrathful, courageous, resourceful, loving and even occasionally light-hearted, Lily is a bracingly refreshing heroine. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.