The Motherless Child Project

Gr 7 Up—Emily Amber has grown up with a mystery where a mother should be. When she hears a spiritual in her friend's church and is assigned a school project about making her own online community, Emily decides to form a virtual group of other motherless children. Her search for her mother and her interactions with the online forum lead her down surprising paths. This is a "message" book, one that is unabashed in its delivery of a viewpoint. Emily sets off on a path to discovery that seems a bit contrived, as the information she uncovers could have easily been found out at other times. Her father is a caricature, as are the conservative friend with ulterior motives and the evil guardian ad litem who represents the corrupt court system that disenfranchises mothers. Additionally, Emily has a dangerously skewed relationship with food and her disordered thinking is never addressed in the course of the book. The writing is clunky and lacks nuance, which cheapens any character development that occurs for the protagonist.