ME AND MARY ELLEN

About the Book

Ida Lee Gudgali is a typical fifteen year old high school student and her seventeen year old non-typical sister Mary Ellen. You see, Mary Ellen has a mild form of Autism, so even if Ida Lee loves her beyond the sky and sea, she can’t hug her. Mary Ellen hates to be hugged. Mom struggles with her daughter’s teen issues when life should be happier, gayer, more fun. . . and Dad? He has no time for all that, at all. He finally abandons the family; as later, does Mom, in search of the youthful life and loves she left behind, leaving all in the hands of Ida Lee. So, Ida Lee and Mary Ellen, find themselves adrift, unprepared, approaching homelessness. On their own, but determined, in spite of the odds of making it.

About the Author

NancyLee has been writing all her life, while growing up in Minnesota, raising her family on a historic lakeside farm, raising and showing horses, trying her hand at auto racing, including the fine art of racing on the ice of frozen rivers and lakes in a series encompassing northern United States and Canada. During those early years, she wrote her own column in a weekly newspaper. She also assisted in the education of mentally disabled children for many years, including those with autism. Now retired to the snowless south, she shares her experiences of a grandchild who was diagnosed with autism, and his special brilliance at the little things in life.