If I could, I'd give this one 3.5 stars. There's no one Clayton Byrd loves more than Cool Papa, his kind, blues-playing grandfather, who gave him his beloved harmonica, takes him on adventures street busking and reads to him from their special book, The Four Corners of the World. His mother,who works in a hospital, still resents her father for his unavailability when she was a child. She is hard and tough and doesn't understand the relationship between her father and her son. Clayton's father tries to enter their life but she won't let him near. When Cool Papa dies, she sells all his stuff in a yard sale for a fraction of what it's worth--even his beloved guitars. Then Clayton starts acting up. She takes away his harmonica. What's a boy to do?

My biggest problem with this book is that the mother is too much of a villain. My favorite thing about Williams-Garcia's other books was how dimensional all the characters were. This was a bit of a disappointment. But I loved Clayton and Cool Papa and I loved the intergenerational relationship at the heart of the story.