A distance of forty-two miles is what JoEllen travels each week between her mom’s house in downtown Cincinatti and her dad’s farmhouse outside of the city. It’s not just the commute between households that’s wearing on twelve-year-old JoEllen, but also the fracturing she feels in her identity. At her dad’s house, she’s called Joey and spends her time fishing and riding horses with her cousin Hayden. With mom, she goes by Ellen and giggles with her girlfriends about school, hobbies, and future dreams. As her thirteenth birthday approaches, JoEllen decides, “My two lives / are going to meet /and shake hands. I’m going to have: / one celebration / one cake / and one song, / with all my favorite voices / singing together.” Spare poems accented with whimsical scrapbook-style collages tell the journey of a young teen who wants to her life to be whole rather than disparate parts. (Ages 10–14)

JoEllen's parents divorced when she was very young, so she was used to splitting her time between them, shuttling four blocks from one Cincinnati apartment to another. But when her dad moved to the old family farm last year, her life was suddenly divided. Now on weekdays she's a city girl, called Ellen, who hangs out with her friends, plays the sax, and loves old movies. And on weekends she's a country girl, nicknamed Joey, who rides horseback with her cousin, Hayden, goes fishing, and listens to bluegrass. So where do her loyalties lie? Who is the real JoEllen? Linked free-verse poems, illustrated with a quirky array of found objects and mementos, create the vivid, realistic portrait of a young girl at a defining moment in her life.