Twelve-year-old Nora and her mother, Lorna, live in the largest cemetery in Manila, alongside many other people who may have once lived in conventional homes. A fire swept through Nora's home, killing her father, and when the financial difficulties became insurmountable, Nora and her mother were forced to move in with her father's remains in the family's grave house. "A home does not have dead people inside it," Nora thinks of this housing situation. Impoverished, Nora tries to make money by selling wreaths of "everlasting daisies" to cemetery visitors--providing Marie Miranda Cruz's title, Everlasting Nora.
Nora no longer attends school (though there is a makeshift "pushcart classroom" in the cemetery). Instead, she helps her mother do laundry to earn enough for food and basic necessities. Resilient, strong Nora is mature enough to realize that her mother's gambling problem has gotten the better of her--but she doesn't know that Lorna borrowed money from a neighborhood loan shark who employs a vicious enforcer. When Lorna disappears, Nora and her friend Jojo work together to find her. Others help: Jojo's grandmother and other cemetery neighbors and friends join the search, demonstrating people's basic humanity, even in the face of extreme need.
Debut author Cruz is a writer and scientist who uses her own Filipino background to infuse this book with authentic texture, such as Tagalog words (with an excellent glossary in back) and food described in great detail. Despite the violence that endangers Nora's life, her friendships, hopes and, most of all, her love for her mother, ensure that her future will be happier. --Melinda Greenblatt, freelance book reviewer