I first heard about Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me (Random House 2009) from a  book editor who said, “There is so much buzz about this book, I think it might win the Newbery.” 

Set in the 70′s in New York City, the story centers on sixth grade Miranda and her best friend Sal.  Miranda (a girl) and Sal (a boy) live in the same apartment complex, both are from single-mom families, and they’ve been best friends forever.  Then one day Sal gets punched in the face by a random kid on the street, and suddenly Sal wants nothing to do with Miranda.  Miranda’s on her own and has to learn how to make new friends and fit in. 

There is so much going on in this novel I hardly know where to start.  It’s a coming of age story, it’s a story about mother/daughter relationships, it’s a story about friendship.  But it’s also a mystery with unexplainable, unsigned letters, a missing apartment key, and a crazy homeless guy on the corner, all wrapped up with a sci-fi twist a la Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

When You Reach Me has a bit of a retro feel, kind of like the 70′s style t-shirts I see popping up in stores right now (although it may feel this way to me since I’m a child of the 70′s myself).  The novel is also proof that you don’t need international killers, vampires, or evil plots by fiendish ne’er do-wells to create a sense of suspense and mystery.  

The novel quotes Albert Einstein who said, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.”  For children, life is full of mystery.  Author Rebecca Stead beautifully captures the biggest mystery of childhood, the mystery that is known as growing up.

The Garden of Eve by K.L. Going (Houghton Mifflin, 2007) takes the images of the Biblical Garden of Eden and reworks them into a poignant novel about life, death and love.

When ten-year-old Evie’s mother dies of cancer, her father decides to buy an old apple orchard far away in Beaumont, New York.  Evie longs to stay in her childhood home, a home full of memories of her mother.  These very memories break her father’s heart again and again, and he feels must leave in order to move overcome his grief.  

But when Evie and her dad arrive in Beaumont, they discover the old orchard hasn’t produced fruit in years.  Years ago a girl disappeared in the orchard, and the locals claim it is cursed.  Evie’s mother taught her to believe in wonder and miracles and the magic of fairy tales, but a cursed garden seems awfully hard to believe.  If only Evie’s mother were there.  If only her dad would stop working in the orchard constantly and give her more attention.  If only Evie could turn back time . . .

The Garden of Eve creates a fairy-tale world of magic seeds, an otherworldly tree, and a mysterious ghostly boy.  But more importantly, the novel creates the magic that is found in the deepest relationships.  “Remember, there are many kinds of magic–there’s the magic of trees that grow and birds that fly and there’s the magic of growing up and getting older, but mostly there’s the magic of love, which cannot be contained, not even by death.”

When you’re a sister sandwiched between two sets of twins, you pretty much get ignored.  It’s the twins everyone finds interesting, they’re the novelty–you’re just an extra.  At least that’s how Miri feels in The Magic Half (Bloomsbury, 2008).  This middle grade novel by Annie Barrows weaves a story of family and friendship with a unique time travel twist (and a surprise ending to boot).  

When Miri’s family moves to a new house, Miri has no one to hang out with.  Older brothers Ray and Robbie, and younger sisters Nell and Nora, all have built-in friends, their twin.  Mom and dad are swamped with work and unpacking.  So Miri, a girl with ”a dazzling imaginative capacity”  is on her own.   

Soon Miri finds herself in trouble.  She hits her brother with a shovel and gets sent to her room.  Miri’s old, quirky bedroom with its ugly orange and purple wallpaper was once part of the attic.  Miri explores the room and discovers a small piece of pinkish glass.

As Miri looks through the glass, the room seems “to bend and collapse in the middle, as though the center of the house were being sucked into a whirlpool.”  Miri has been transported to 1935.  She’s in the same bedroom, but it looks completely different.  The bedroom also belongs to Molly, a girl who is in grave danger from a vicious cousin and a jealous aunt. 

Soon Miri finds herself travelling back and forth through time trying to save Molly.  Molly begs Miri to take her away, back to future.  What should Miri do?  Will she get trapped in 1935?  Can she get Molly to the future? And what will she tell her parents when brings home a complete stranger, a girl with no family, no money, and nowhere to go?  Read The Magic Half and find out!

Caddie Woodlawn, Hermione Granger, Violet Beauregarde, Anne of Green Gables–you gotta love the girls that are smart and spunky, clever and courageous.  Author Kelly Easton gives us another plucky heroine in her middle-grade novel The Outlandish Adventures of Liberty Aimes (Random House, 2009).

Liberty Aimes, nicknamed Libby, lived in a decrepit old house on 33 Gooch Street.  It was so run down, “If it could walk, it would limp.  If it could talk, it would stutter.  If it could smile, it would have rotting teeth.”

Libby’s father, Mal, was a sort of Count Olaf, Vernon Dursley, and an evil magician all rolled into one.  Libby’s mother, Sal, sat on the couch all day watching TV and eating nonstop.  She complained that “because of Libby, she was now fat, married to a dud, and stuck in her life.”  (Turns out her mother was bewitched by one of Mal’s evil spells.)  Libby never left the house;  she was a prisoner (Think Sarah Crewe in A Little Princess).

Libby led a dull, relentless existence of chores, cooking, and non-stop dishes while her dad cheated people with bogus insurance policies and her mother ate and watched TV.  Luckily, Libby discovered a secret stash of books hidden under a loose board, so at least she could read.

Then Libby finished her last book.  “She could read them again, but there wouldn’t be the surprise.”  Next she overheard her father say that he was going to force her to help with his nighttime plumbing business, and she would be the one to stick her hands down toilets and be lowered into sewers.

One day Mal burst through the door, fresh from being sprayed by a skunk.  While Mal bathed in tomato juice, he left his keys to his secret basement laboratory unguarded.  Libby’s chance to escape! 

But it would be a very short novel if Libby’s problems all ended then and there.  No–Libby, who starts using her real name, Liberty–has many more troubles and many more adventures.  Nevertheless, through it all she has hope.  “Hope is, of course, the belief that if you are patient and trusting, terrible times will pass and the future will be bright.” 

And sure enough, for Miss Liberty, the future is very bright indeed.