Drive

This fourth title in the best-selling Bakers Mountain Stories series by Joyce Moyer Hostetter focuses on the relationship between twin sisters Ida and Ellie Honeycutt, who find themselves growing apart as they respond differently to their father’s post–World War II trauma, the NASCAR speedway, and their new high school. With home life destabilized by her father’s postwar trauma, Ellie Honeycutt seeks escape at the NASCAR speedway and in her dreams of travel and college. On the other hand, her twin sister, Ida, clings to family and finds solace in her sketchbook. Their close relationship is threatened when they both fall for the same charming classmate at their new high school. But a devastating car accident forces them to change roles and, ultimately, renews the sisters’ deep bond. Set against the backdrop of the nuclear arms race and the 1952 presidential election, this compelling coming-of-age story is told in the twins’ alternating voices. The book concludes with an author’s note and further resources.