Becoming Jestina, Paperback/Merrill J. Davies

Sixteen-year-old Jessie Thompson reluctantly moves with her mother and older sister to Savannah, Georgia, in the summer of 1943 to work as a welder on the Liberty Ships. Her main goal is to survive long enough to return to Alabama and finish high school. But will she be able to survive when tragedy strikes and she has to learn how to "weld" her life back together amid the uncertainties of the war?