One good mama bone A novel

*Starred Review* As a child, Sarah Creamer was told by her mother that you ain't got you one good mama bone in you, child. As a widow in 1950s rural South Carolina, Sarah is still haunted by those words as she struggles to make ends meet for herself and seven-year-old Emerson Bridge, the illegitimate son of her husband and her best friend. Winning the grand prize at the local Fat Cattle Show and Sale could put the family on stable financial footing, but the calf they purchase to raise is soon joined by its mother, who has escaped from the rancher's pasture. Sarah takes the mother cow, Mama Red, as her model as she strives to be a mother to her adopted son. But as the competition nears, Sarah and Emerson Bridge are forced to confront their own naïveté about the fate of the winning calf turned steer and what it will mean for Mama Red and for their own family. First-time novelist McClain draws on her family's history in the rural South to create a cast of deeply relatable characters, both human and animal, who readers will find themselves rooting for until the very last page.--Harmon, Lindsay Copyright 2017 Booklist