Brave New Wanda

This topical young adult book won an Illinois Arts Council award.Wanda Louise Ledbetter, —thirteen, "white trash," orphaned, mad, and too smart for her own good —is eyeballing every man leaving the doctor's' entrance of the big Dallas hospital. Perched on her mama''s rusted-out Cadillac, she''s been there 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.