The Silver Star

Jeannette Walls quickly won a place in my heart with The Glass Castle and secured it with Half Broke Horses.  When I unexpectedly saw her latest book while shopping for something else, I grabbed it for a trip I was taking.  I didn't read the book jacket, in fact, I took it off when I threw the book in my travel bag and never looked at it again.
The Silver Star is fiction, but it begins much like the previous books, a biography and autobiography.  The author has a delightful way of taking me back.  Sometimes she takes me back to a place I don't believe I would ever want to revisit, but she does it with humor and tenderness.  She makes me feel like I have a story of my own.
While this book isn't brilliant, in my opinion, I loved it for it various reasons.  Sometimes when you are going back in time and connecting with a fictional version of yourself it may just be a simple little story that you need.  I think a 12-year-old me would have adored this book.  I like that a much older me can appreciate that.
This story is written through the eyes of little Bean who is twelve years old and wants nothing more than to enjoy normalcy in her very abnormal world.  She wants happiness for herself and the people around her.  She wants justice and correctness. 
If the story lines are thin .... so what?  For a few hours on a couple of planes, I was 12 again.  Everyday was a barefoot adventure.  For a few hours, I was able to chuckle out loud, weep openly, skin my knees a little bit, and remember with a touch of fondness a time I thought I didn't want to remember.