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.