Changes

|title=Love in the Present Tense

|author=Catherine Ryan Hyde

|date=January 2007

|isbn=978-0552773645

}}

The front cover of this book describes it as: 'The magical story of a young boy's search for his mother' . This is misleading. Leonard, the young boy in question, is a remarkable child even at five years old when the main part of the story starts. His mother Pearl, who had him when she was only thirteen, is pretty amazing too. Street-wise, almost obsessively clean and tidy, and an intuitively good mother despite her extreme youth. However he never actually searches for her, even when she's gone.