What would you do if you found out that the county was going to take your house away?
Zollicoffer, Tennessee, is a little town with a big name. Lou Mayhew, who is about to enter the sixth grade, lives there with her parents. Her dad is the local junkman. Lou is not exactly thrilled with what he does, and the kids at school give her a rough time over it. Her pregnant mom is an enviro-artist. She takes pieces of the junk and somehow makes “art” out of them. Then there is her flashy grandmother to liven things up a bit.
Not everyone in town appreciates the junkman’s house. Many of them consider it an eyesore, so they find a way to have it removed through eminent domain. Their house is big, falling apart, and always filled with junk, but it also had all kinds of neat places to hide. And this is how Lou finds out something that she isn’t supposed to know, something that makes her love the big old rambling house she lives in: the county is threatening to take the house that had been in their family since before the Civil War.
Now that it looks like she might have to move, she finds that she really doesn’t want to. She loves her life just the way it is. Lou decides she has to find a way to save their home. Will she find out enough about their house to have it declared a historical property?
Lou finds a diary written by Louise Duncan Mayhew, who lived during the Civil War. Inside this diary are secrets about her family that upset her. Could there be a clue hidden in its writings that will help Lou save her home? Maybe even a clue that will lead her to the gold that is supposed to be hidden on their property?
This book was written for those ages ten and up. I guess that includes me since I’m way over ten years old. I really, really enjoyed reading it. It was super hard to put down, and I finished it in just over a day. I had to find out what happened with Lou and if she would find a way to save her family’s home.
Written in a very entertaining style, this book would be hard for anyone to put down. I was sent a copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. If you would like a copy of your own, I have provided an Amazon link below.
Amazon Link: Last in a Long Line of Rebels
Favorite Sentences:
Being the junkman’s daughter isn’t always as cool as it might sound.
If gossip was an Olympic sport, she’d win the gold medal.
Of all the things I’d expected to hear about my family, having a gold-stealing ancestor wasn’t one of them.
The air inside the library was as cold as the frozen food section of the Piggly Wiggly.
My options buzzed through my brain like a mosquito trying to find a warm place to land.
New Word Learned:
manumission – the act of freeing or the state of being freed from slavery, servitude, etc
About the Author:
Lisa Lewis Tyre grew up in a small town in Tennessee surrounded by her crazy family and neighbors. She learned early on that not every child had a pet skunk, a dad that ran a bar in the front yard, or a neighbor that was so large his house had to be torn down to get him out. What else could she do but write?
