But Heidi wonders who she is, where she and Mama came from, why they were alone, and most of all, she wants to know the meaning of Mama's word "soof." When she finds some old photos in a cupboard, she knows where to go to find out, and as she sets out on a long cross-country bus journey, the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into surprising places in this intriguing and heartwarming mystery. Heidi does the shopping because Bernadette has "angora phobia," and pays for it with money she wins at the laundromat Bernadette teaches her at the kitchen table while Mama is happily occupied with her coloring books, and the rent and utilities are always mysteriously paid. Twelve years later this strange but loving household is still together. Mama says her name is "So Be It," but with her twenty-three-word vocabulary, this is all the information she can give Bernadette. It, which appeared on the LA Times bestseller list was chosen as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and received the 2004 Parent’s Choice Gold Award. Heidi's Mama can't tend her week-old child because she has, as Heidi later says, "a bum brain," so Bernadette steps in and cares for them both tenderly. The baby was Heidi, and they had come from the almost-empty apartment next door for help. She opened the door a crack and saw a young woman standing there in her raincoat, her bare legs spattered with dried mud, holding a crying baby wrapped in a blanket. One day in her apartment in Reno, Bernadette heard a pitiful sound in the hallway.
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