It's 1980. It's been a tough year, and 11 year old Sharlie has got to step up or her family will fall apart. Mom is absorbed in grief, and 8 year old Cissy is acting like a baby. And now Sharlie’s best friend is being sent away to live with grandparents out west. What can Sharlie do? Step by step she nudges Mom and Cissy to live again. Along the way she finds some surprising allies. From Boston to Walden Pond, to Montana and Glacier National Park, they stumble on, oblivious of the dangerous cliffs ahead, of the horses, cowboys, and campfires in their future. Of what family can become.
Sharley and her dad have been best friends since her little sister Sissy was born. They've had adventures on land (Haymarket) and sea (The Canoe). How nice to have someone special of her own when little Sissy is determined to occupy all of Mom's time. And then, just before Christmas the year Sharley is 11, Dad is killed in a plane crash. Mom and Sissy are having a rough time, and Sharley is on her own. Except that sometimes Mom needs her to take over with Sissy, who is becoming more and more of a baby, though she is 6. Sharley takes over for Mom bit by bit. What will it take to pull the family back together? Who will step up? Or will they go their separate ways, as happened to Sharley's friend? Triple Divide is the story of a struggle to rebuild a family after disaster. Everyone has a role to play, and it plays out in Montana on Triple Divide Peak, a well-known hiking location in Glacier National Park. How did Sharley, Mom, and Cissy get there, and how do they manage? And where do cowboy songs fit into this story that originates just outside of Boston?