Barbara Stuber is an American author of young-adult historical fiction and a museum docent in Kansas City. Her novels Crossing the Tracks and Girl in Reverse explore family, identity, loss, and belonging through carefully researched twentieth-century settings.
At fifteen, Iris is a hobo of sorts—no home, no family, no plan. Her mother died when she was six, and her selfish father hires her out as a companion to a country doctor’s elderly mother. Iris, stuck in the middle of 1920s rural Missouri, discovers that "hobo" is short for "homeward bound," and cultivates an eccentric cast of folks into family, creating the home she never had. But when she learns that a neighboring tenant farmer may have had more than his hands on his pregnant daughter, Iris must intervene to save the girl and her unborn baby. The many facets of what makes a family are illuminated with warmth and charm in this beautifully crafted tale.
Print · 2010 · English
More About Barbara Stuber
Barbara Stuber writes young-adult historical fiction and has worked as a docent at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Her museum work and interest in visual art provide documented context for a body of fiction concerned with history, family, and identity.
Her debut novel, Crossing the Tracks, follows a fifteen-year-old sent to rural Missouri in the 1920s. The book was named a finalist for the 2011 William C. Morris Award and selected for YALSA's 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults list.
Stuber's second novel, Girl in Reverse, shifts to the Korean War era and follows a Chinese American adoptee searching for her origins amid racism and family silence. Across the two novels, Stuber uses historical settings to examine grief, self-understanding, and the relationships that create a sense of home.
