1932. Ludelphia Bennett is ten years old, and she’s never set foot outside of Gee’s Bend, her small town tucked into a bend in the Alabama RIver. Ludelphia is blind in one eye, the result of a childhood accident, and she can’t swim. She’s never been on the ferry that crosses the river over into the village of Camden. No one in her family has ever seen a real doctor.

So when Ludelphia’s mama gets very sick after the birth of new baby sister, Rose, and Ludelphia’s friend, Etta Mae, recommends that Ludelphia fetch the doctor from Camden, the town across the river, it takes all the determination and bravery and quilting that Ludelphia can summon up to sustain her in her journey. That’s right, quilting. Stitching. Ludelphia sews on her patchwork quilt to tell her story, to calm her nerves, and to hold her world together.

The dialog in the book has just enough dialect to catch the flavor of the south in the 1930’s. And crazy Mrs. Cobb is a villain just scary enough for a middle grade book, and still not absolutely horrifying. The story itself twist and turns, but resolves in satisfying way as Ludelphia learns something about the world outside of Gee’s Bend and returns with not only help for her mama, but help for the whole town. And the ending is not an unrealistic solution to everything, just a way through for Ludelphia and her family to go on with their lives.

I started again with the needle. Mama always said you should live a life the same way you piece a quilt. That you was in charge of where you put the pieces. You was the one to decide how your story turns out.
Well, it seemed to me some of them pieces had a mind of their own.

I reckon when you grow up in one place you just naturally think every other place is the same as your home. I reckon it takes leaving to appreciate all the things about that place that make it special.
Dear Lord, I did want to go home.

Other takes:
Maw’s Books: “I enjoyed learning more about this real town of Gee’s Bend which is steeped in quilting history and was the inspiration for this novel. The book felt a bit slow near the beginning of the book but once Ludelphia began her journey, everything began to move along and I was fully invested in her story.”

Megan at Leafing Through Life: “Lu will meet both good and evil people and hopefully emerge on the other side with a better story for her quilt than she could have ever imagined. Drawing inspiration from the real Gee’s Bend’s rich quilting history, Irene Latham has crafted a beautiful story of her own. Leaving Gee’s Bend is a coming of age story set in a vividly drawn 1930s sharecropping community.”

Hope is the Word: “Irene Latham is not only a master at using dialect very unobtrusively, she also has a talent for figurative language. Again, Ludelphia’s voice is unforgettable.”

An interview with Irene Latham at Cynsations.

Leaving Gee’s Bend has been nominated for the 2010 Cybils Awards in the Middle Grade Fiction category.