Heart of a Shepherd Excerpt

From ChildLitWiki

Grandpa frowns when he plays chess, like he does when he prays. He’s got a floppy mustache that pulls that frown right down past his chin. He used to have freckles like me, but I guess they expanded on him, because his whole face is pack-mule tan, with a fan of wrinkles at the corners. Years and years of moving cattle and mending fences gives a man a fearsome look, and I bet if I work at it, I can look just like my grandpa by the time I go to board at the high school. But the fences are mended for now and the cows are up in the mountains with my older brothers, so Grandpa and me are playing chess out on the back porch.

Grandpa’s chessmen are world-famous around here. They came over the Oregon Trail with Grandpa’s grandfather in the covered wagon, and before that they came straight from Paris, France. They were carved by hand from ebony for the dark side and ivory for the light. The pawns all have round helmets and longbows. Everyone else has a sword, even the bishops, and their faces are dead serious, which is what you want when there’s a war on.

Excerpted from Heart of a Shepherd. Copyright © 2009 by Roseanne Parry.