A Year with the Harrisons — Sarah Scheele

A Year with the Harrisons is a nostalgic, fictionalized look at living in a homeschooling family. Although the incidents are invented, much of the book is inspired by scenes familiar to the author's life during the years 1995-2010. The story follows three teenage daughters -- picture-perfect Luna, geeky Lamia, and out-of-the-box Letty -- and their quiet father and robust, over-protective mother (Joe and Linda Harrison) who are typical homeschooling parents. It explores homeschooling in the popular culture mindset by linking the Harrison family with some distant cousins who are icons of pop music and whose circle of star athletes and reality shows is humorously contrasted to the Harrisons. But the relationship grows increasingly close throughout the book as both families bumble and survive their way on the often amusing, always bumpy road of growing up. After all, when you're a teenager your education-and-future always takes a back seat to playing it cool. Young Adult fiction. 254 pages. Brief mention of drug use in the past (by a minor character.) Church politics and maneuverings are sometimes shown critically.