Whiteoak --recalls the story of a girl named Ellen who is tired of looking through windows from the outside. Ellen wants a home, and her alcoholic, drifter father has not been able to provide one since her mother died when Ellen was seven. Pa pulls Ellen after him like a suitcase tied together by ropes. If they're lucky they rent a temporary shack while Pa works a temporary job, until "circumstances" force them to move again. After living throughout the South and being called "white trash" once too often, Pa gives Ellen a birthday present when she turns sixteen. He rents a cottage on the property of Whiteoak, an old South Carolina plantation. Ellen imagines finding her home in the white-pillared house, which is surrounded by gardens and corrals. She befriends Nina, the black teenager who lives in the cottage next door. Not long after moving in and signing up at the local high school, Ellen meets the O'Learys, a couple around forty who lost their only child in a riding accent and who recently bought Whiteoak. Since Ellen has the same last name, everyone in the small town thinks she's the O'Leary's daughter. Pa makes Ellen promise to stay at Whiteoak as long as possible, and then he dies of hepatitis. Will the O'Learys find out Ellen is pretending to be their daughter? Does Ellen deserve a real home, with white lace curtains? When she meets the neighbor's son, Brett, she wants to stay at Whiteoak even more--to go to a prom like a normal teenager, stay in one high school for longer than six months, plant her own roots in the Carolina ground like the oak trees surrounding Whiteoak. After various adventures tied to her past, Ellen does find her home--but she doesn't forget the people who still stand beyond glass windows, waiting. This novel is for young adults and contains about 45,000 words.