This topical young adult book won an Illinois Arts Council award. Brave New Wanda is an engaging, thoughtful, even fun treatment of a sensitive topic that appeals to young adult (and adult) readers.

Wanda Louise Ledbetter–thirteen, white trash, orphaned, mad, and too smart for her own good–is eyeballing every man leaving the doctors’ entrance of the big hospital in Dallas. Perched on her mama’s rusted-out Cadillac, she’s been there all afternoon–ever since her stepfather, Harley, drunk and abusive after her mother’s funeral, yelled out the secret nobody was ever supposed to know: Wanda’s daddy wasn’t her daddy, and not even her dead mama knew his name–because Wanda was made with donor sperm. So Wanda has grabbed her half-gone grandma and her half-dog Wild Thing and hit the road to find her “real” daddy. There’s brave new trouble ahead, and Brave New Wanda is roaring toward it in her mama’s junker Caddy.