Shelter from the Wind — Marion Dane Bauer

It used to be just Stacy and her dad, ever since Stacy's mother left them five years ago. But Stacy's stepmother, Barbara, seems to have taken over their world -- and now she's pregnant, too. One hot June morning Stacy runs away, not sure where she's going or what she's looking for -- her mother, maybe? She heads across the Oklahoma panhandle where she has always lived, without supplies, without a plan. After a scary night alone on the prairie, a pair of white German shepherd dogs finds her. They lead her to their mistress, Old Ella, a woman who lives alone in a small secluded cabin. It is here that Stacy confronts the true source of her anger and learns what it really means to be a woman, a daughter, a friend.

First published in 1976, Shelter from the Wind is a heart-rending story of a girl's coming of age set against the backdrop of the harsh Oklahoma panhandle.