The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard

I am having lots of trouble getting back into the swing of school. It is 2:30 p.m. now and I am really struggling because I am missing my afternoon nap. I can't believe how easy it is to get into the afternoon nap habit in only 2 short weeks of vacation!

I didn't read too much over vacation, but I did enjoy The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard. This book is the 2009 Big Read book sponsored by the State Library of Kansas. And it is a great book for this purpose with lots of things to think about and discuss. It would be a good book club selection.

The Virgin of Small Plains is a book set in the Kansas Flint Hills written by a Kansas author. The book is about a Cold Case from 1987. It is a very cold case in fact: Rex and his brother and father are searching for calves during a blizzard when they find a dead bloody girl in the snow. They take the body to the town doctor who with the help of the town sheriff destroys the girl's face so she cannot be identified. She is buried in an unmarked grave and people claim that "the Virgin of Small Plains" can perform miracles. People come from all around to be healed by her.

Mitch is dating the doctor's daughter Abby. Sneaking out of her room in the middle of the night, he is hiding in the supply closet when the dead girl is brought in. He sees the seemingly respectable men covering up the crime and recognizes the girl. He hurries home and tells his father about what he has seen and his father quickly packs him off away from town instructing him to never talk about what he has witnessed.

The book takes place 17 years later. Mitch has never returned to Small Plains and Abby has never gotten over it. In another blizzard, Abby sees Mitch's mother running through the town cemetery and then finds her frozen to death. This brings back the death 17 years earlier and Abby decides that she must know what happened to the virgin and who she really was.

This book is told through a series of flashbacks and several different characters' points of view. It is a great mystery to find out who the virgin is and what happened to her on the snowy night years ago.