Things start crumbling in Rory's life when she finds out Heidi is coming to visit them. She has to tap each elbow to keep things even and she speaks a foreign language not even her mother can translate.

Rory has heard those stories again and again and again. What she knows best is how much her parents loved having a girl named Heidi come and live with them. In fact, they remember when she bit and when she turned upside down on the climbing bars, forgot she was wearing her dress and flashed everyone her flowered underwear. She knows everyone in her class and they know her. What can you do when you realize your parents love another girl more than they love you? How much can it hurt when you have heard her stories so many times that you can tell them even better than your mother can? What have you lost when your parents think you are a little weird and don't know you enough to know you would never have set your own house on fire?Īurora, better known as Rory, has lived in her town for her whole life. But sometimes even when soof is right there in front of you, you still need to find it - and that's exactly what Aurora is going to do.-from the publisher Aurora and her family have always believed in soof - Heidi's mom's word for love. And, even worse, Aurora's beloved dog goes missing. There's a fire in their attic, destroying a good part of their house. On the eve of a visit from Heidi, more bad luck hits Aurora's family. And she's starting to think her mom thinks she's weird, too. (Oct.All her life, Aurora has heard stories about Heidi and all the good luck she brought Aurora's family.

With pie recipes introducing each chapter, Weeks’s (As Simple as It Seems) novel stimulates both sweet tooths and sweet nostalgia. Alice and her friend Charlie become amateur sleuths and prevail over adult immaturity, while Polly’s generous spirit resonates from beyond the grave. In response, adults indulge in behavior ranging from bizarre to criminal: the entire town begins baking pies, someone catnaps Lardo and ransacks Polly’s store, and Alice’s unpleasant and money-grubbing mother becomes even more so, feeling jilted by being left out of Polly’s will. Humor and mystery ensue when the town learns that Polly inexplicably bequeathed her secret piecrust recipe to her grouchy cat, Lardo, and Lardo to Alice. Polly’s death leads to widespread grieving, as well as anxiety about Ipswitch’s future. Astonishingly, her nonprofit business flourishes, lifting the town’s economy and fame, as Polly repeatedly wins the coveted Blueberry Award. Delightfully quirky characters populate the 1950s-era small town of Ipswitch, Pa., beginning with 10-year-old Alice’s aunt Polly, pie baker extraordinaire, who confounds her family and neighbors by giving away-rather than selling-her shop’s mouthwatering pies.

Pie by sarah weeks reading level