Creech writes about coming-of-age themes and finding one's place in a family in Walk Two Moons, where Sal travels from Ohio to Idaho with her grandparents to visit her mother. Mary Lou, the protagonist in Absolutely Normal Chaos begrudgingly begins keeping a journal about her summer and her perfectly normal family. In Bloomability Dinnie feels kidnapped when her aunt and uncle take her with them to Switzerland where her uncle is a school headmaster. She leaves her family in the Southwest and longs for letters from her mother, but only receives mail from two elderly aunts. The Wanderer describes Sophie, a thirteen-yearold adopted child, making a perilous journey from Connecticut to England on a forty-five foot sailboat with her grandfather and male cousins.

With each protagonist, except Mary Lou in Absolutely Normal Chaos, Creech connects a journey with self-discovery.

The protagonists of these four...