Tess Hilmo

With a Name Like Love
Farrar, Straus and Giroux , 2011
middle grade, ISBN 978-0374384654

In the early summer days of 1957, Ollie’s daddy – the Reverend Everlasting Love—pulls their travel trailer into town with the intent of offering a three day revival. On their first day, Ollie meets a boy whose mother is in jail for murdering his father—and who asserts her innocence. But, even if Ollie were to believe the boy, could she convince her daddy to stay long enough to help him? Ollie’s longing for a friend and her daddy’s penchant for searching out lost souls prove to be a formidable force in this little town where everyone seems bent on judging and jailing without so much as a promise of a trial. A tender tale of family, friendship and how the music of the South can loosen even the strongest chains, With A Name Like Love is a novel to make your heart sing.

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When Tess Hilmo was a little girl, she enjoyed singing songs like "This Little Light of Mine" and "Swing Low Sweet Chariot." One day, when she was around six years old, she was performing a rather boisterous (and somewhat off-key) rendition of "This Little Light of Mine" when her friend said, “You shouldn’t be singing that song. You’re just a skinny white girl who can’t carry a tune.”

But she couldn’t stop singing. Her friend may have been right, she may have been an awful singer, but that music spoke to her. It made her believe she could do anything her heart desired. It made her feel like the world was full of possibilities.

Fast forward a few years and you would find her, now a mother of three, writing stories and her own music. She still sings those same southern gospel songs to her children…and is still terribly off-key. After writing a song called "Lead Me On," patterned after the classic Negro Spirituals in pentatonic meter, her mother said, “You should write a story to go with that song.”

And she did. With a Name Like Love is that story. It is written to celebrate family and friendship and the historical songs of the south. Her original song, "Lead Me On," is actually featured in the novel!