Up a Road Slowly is Julie Trelling's story, beginning when she is seven years old and her mother dies, and ending with her entrance into college at seventeen. Julie and each of the diverse members of her family must learn to adapt to life's sorrows through selfdiscipline and to derive pleasure from the simple joys of hard work, caring for others, and earning respect and love.

Seven-year-old Julie feels abandoned on a very long and lonely road as she is forced to adjust to the loss of her mother and to the transition from a warm, enveloping home with her beloved older sister and father to a cold, stern living environment with a schoolteacher aunt in the country.

As Julie matures, she discovers that all people must walk their own equally lonely roads, many of which are beset with worse problems than her own. As Julie reflects upon the actions of adults and peers in her life, she begins to construct her own moral code based on the values of education, diligence, temperance, and compassion. Up a Road Slowly unites a fascinating story with a subtle but strong primer in ethics and proper behavior.