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As Giant Steps opens, thirteen-year-old Bernie Epperson of Lafayette, Indiana, is wrestling with double standards placed on her compared with her brothers. Soon her cousin awakens her to all the unfair restrictions women face, and Bernie becomes a suffragette. Meanwhile, World War I begins. Her family is devastated when her brothers become soldiers, and Bernie must decide how to help the war effort and continue to fight for women’s rights. While this story is fictional, the details of the suffrage movement and the war efforts of ordinary Americans are true. Middle and high school students will relate to Bernie and her brothers’ dilemmas a century ago because they also face making decisions in a turbulent world while sifting through contradictory news and changing wisdom.

Winner, Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award

An eerie coming-of-age story of a young girl’s quest for her absent mother across the frozen terrain of Lake Superior

One December evening, when 13-year-old Marta crosses the frozen Lake Superior and reaches the home she shares with her father, she finds a woman standing at their door. As Marta approaches, she realizes the woman, who looks like a tropical bird caught in the snow, is her mother who’d abruptly left them six years before. Marta hopes this is a turning point, that her mother will stay this time—despite hating this town, this island, and their creaky, towering Victorian house. But not everyone in town is thrilled with her mother’s arrival, least of all her dad.

Almost as soon as she arrives, however, Marta’s mother abruptly vanishes again, nowhere to be found, leaving Marta with more questions than answers. Her father denies her mother was ever there and Marta is left with the mystery of her mother’s homecoming. She begins to wonder if he is lying, or if there is a deeper secret being kept from her by the entire tight-knit community. As Marta delves into her mother's sudden reappearance and subsequent disappearance, she seeks answers, visiting places that were significant to her mother and questioning people she knew. Desperate for answers that will shed light on the mystery, this quest leads her to uncover a web of secrets that threaten to unravel everything she thought she knew about her family and herself.

Gichigami is an eerie coming-of-age novel, weaving between Marta and the person desperately trying to keep Marta and her mother apart. This poignant exploration of the lives of women and girls of the Midwest shines a light on the struggles of absent mothers, runaway daughters, and those who yearn for more than life has offered them. With rich prose and vivid imagery, Lindsey Steffes spins a tale of loss, longing, and betrayal set against the backdrop of the harsh yet beautiful landscape of Lake Superior.