How to Be a Real Person In Just One Day — Sally Warner

From the author of Sort of Forever, a powerful portrayal of a girl's determined fight to save both her mother and herself from her mother's increasing depression.

Twelve-year-old Kara Biggs is a list-maker: how to get up and go to school, how to get out of doing an oral book report, how to avoid having a teacher-parent conference. And how to be a real person--especially when part of her life doesn't feel all that real anymore. Through the course of one day, Kara's life gradually reveals itself: her father has moved a few hours away for a job, and Kara is left at home with a mother who is spending more and more time in bed and less time taking care of herself or of Kara. But no one knows just how sick her mother has become, not her father, her teacher, or her best friend, and Kara is determined to keep it that way. She can take care of her mother herself, and be as real a person as she can--until her two desires collide in a painful yet hopeful finale.