It was a sweet story, well written in a southern style. The main character is "Mo" an eleven year old orphan seemingly adopted into the care of Miss Lana and The Colonel. The Colonel found "Mo" floating on top of some refuse during a hurricane. The same storm had cause the Colonel to have an accident and lose his memory as to who he was or where he came from.
The setting is in a very small town - so small that when Miss Lana and the Colonel aren't around in the opening pages - everyone that comes into the cafe for breakfast seems to accept that its only Mo, and she's only serving things like peanut butter and jelly. The towns laid back acceptance of the situation gives the story the feeling of being set in the 50s, but its actually setting is the modern day. But because of the town's remoteness and small population, modern day conveniences are hardly a part of the story. Cell phones don't get reception in their town.
One of Mo's routines in the story is sending messages in different corked bottles to her mother. She, or townspeople that are going somewhere special - take her bottles and toss them in the river. Mo has it in her head that since she was found in the river, these messages will find her mother and may eventually reunite them.
In the meantime there is a murder in town, and the plot builds around the solving of this crime
The connection between Miss Lana, The Colonel, and even Mo is not made clear in the story at all - I couldn't figure out if the couple were married and had adopted Mo, and it was never made clear until the end. It wasn't an important part, but would have helped.
Mo's personality was really fun to read - her taking charge of the cafe, her sworn enemy, her sworn love, her brazen questions and actions - made the story entertaining. I also love stories that have beautiful moments - and make more of a habit of highlighting these lines in the future. But one of my favorites was in response to a drunken father telling Mo that her mother had thrown her out. The statement forces her to come to terms with what has happened in her own history and serves as a turning point to appreciate what she has. She replied,
"At least my mother only threw me out once. You throw your family away every day."
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