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.

Marion Dane Bauer is the author of the acclaimed My Mother Is Mine, If You Were Born a Kitten, Grandmother's Song, and many other books for young readers. Marion is a professor of writing at Vermont College. She lives in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.