Starred Review ALA Booklist (Tue Feb 01 00:00:00 CST 2005)

Starred Review Readers who have longed for a follow-up to White's Newbery Honor Book, Belle Prater's Boy (1996), will be delighted with this fine sequel, in which the search for Woodrow's missing mother continues. A mysterious New Year's Eve phone call on Woodrow's birthday leads him, Cousin Gypsy, and Cassie Caulborne, a classmate with second sight, to nearby Bluefield to follow Belle's trail. The journey away from their small Virginia town gives Woodrow his first glimpse of a colored person (a boy in the back of the bus, named Joseph), as well as what Gypsy terms the hateful segregation laws of the mid-1950s. The search widens as the trio agrees to help abandoned Joseph search for his father. Characterization, dialogue, and setting are among White's many literary strengths, and she doesn't disappoint here. The friendship between storytelling Woodrow and joke-cracking Gypsy just grows richer as Woodrow faces disappointment and finds hope. If the plot seems a bit tidy, White's young fans won't mind.

Horn Book (Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2005)

In 1953, Belle Prater disappeared from her western Virginia home. When her son, Woodrow, receives an anonymous phone call at the very moment he'd been born thirteen years before, he believes his mother is ready to find him after a year and a half. The backstory from Belle Prater's Boy creates depth for this sequel, but this novel stands alone.

Kirkus Reviews

All of the readers who longed to know what happened to Woodrow Prater's mom from the Newbery Honor Belle Prater's Boy (1996) will be deeply satisfied by this elegantly conceived sequel with its tiny glints of magic. Told in the voice of Woodrow's cousin Gypsy, they are both now in seventh grade, a new friend named Cassie has the second sight and Woodrow's dad has gone off to get dried out, leaving Woodrow with his grandparents in Coal Station, Virginia in 1954. The three friends are determined to find Woodrow's mom, Gypsy's aunt Belle. They track her to Bluefield, WV, where they go on a remarkable daylong bus trip involving coincidences with the color blue, a maternal dwarf and Woodrow's first encounter with segregation. Along the way, stories are told, jokes are shared and family rituals engaged. It doesn't hurt to say that Woodrow finds his mama, and most—but not all—of the magic comes from loving and giving. (Fiction. 8-12)

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-A worthy sequel to Belle Prater's Boy (Farrar, 1996). On his 13th birthday, Woodrow Prater receives a phone call, traced to the nearby town of Bluefield, WV, that sends him and his cousin Gypsy on a search for his mother, who disappeared almost a year before. They are joined by a new classmate, Cassie, who is gifted with second sight, and by Joseph, a runaway black teen looking for his father. While their search yields no Belle, Joseph is reunited with his long-lost aunt, whose memory is slightly jogged by Belle's photo. Returning home, Woodrow learns that his alcoholic father has decided to give up their cabin. Grandpa takes Woodrow, Gypsy, and Cassie on an overnight trip to the cabin where, guided by Cassie's dream, they find a letter that Belle had left for Woodrow, and he is reassured by the knowledge of her love for him. The many readers awaiting this sequel will be happy for Woodrow and they will likely be intrigued by the role Cassie's second sight plays in the story. The coincidental involvement of Joseph's aunt adds to the satisfying conclusion. Narrated once again by Gypsy, with many references to the '50s Southern setting when racial segregation was in full force, this book relies on a reading of Belle Prater's Boy for character development and background details, but the warmth, love, and humor of that book are here as well and it can be enjoyed on its own.-Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.