Who is the sage of the universe?  Who can you go to for wisdom when all around you is confusion?  Who can you trust?  Yoda, of course.  Tommy knows it, and his fellow sixth graders know it.  Maybe Yoda appears as an origami puppet on the finger of uber-nerd Dwight, maybe Yoda talks in a [...]

Who is the sage of the universe?  Who can you go to for wisdom when all around you is confusion?  Who can you trust?  Yoda, of course.  Tommy knows it, and his fellow sixth graders know it.  Maybe Yoda appears as an origami puppet on the finger of uber-nerd Dwight, maybe Yoda talks in a weird voice that is the worst Yoda impression ever, maybe Dwight isn’t channeling the Force, whatever.  The point is, Yoda’s advice works.  Is Origami Yoda real?  Read The Strange Case of Origami Yoda and find out!  P.S.  Directions for making your own Origami Yoda are included. Great book!  Truly LOL in spots.  High schooler, middle schooler, spouse, and I all had fun with this book.  Secretly the adults might have enjoyed it the most because we’re the furthest from the traumas of middle school

Matched by Ally Condie:  Dystopian YA romance.  Twilight meets The Hunger Games.

Nevermore by Kelly Creagh.  Suspenseful YA romance.  Twilight meets Edgar Allen Poe.

Great reads!

Matched by Ally Condie:  Dystopian YA romance.  Twilight meets The Hunger Games. Nevermore by Kelly Creagh.  Suspenseful YA romance.  Twilight meets Edgar Allen Poe. Great reads!

I love Dan Yaccarino’s art style. Here’s his new book trailer:

I love Dan Yaccarino’s art style. Here’s his new book trailer:

Race for the Sky: The Kitty Hawk Diaries of Johnny Moore  (Simon and Schuster, 2003) is middle-grade historical fiction as it should be.  Author Dan Gutman takes the facts about Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers’ first flight, and weaves them into the journal entries of Johnny Moore, a boy who lived in Nags Head at the time and actually witnessed the first flight. 

Through Johnny’s journal we learn all kinds of interesting details and facts, and Race for the Sky makes you see and understand how truly remarkable the Wright Brothers’ feat was.

Here’s an excerpt from a conversation between Johnny and Wilbur Wright:

“Are you a scientist?” 

“No,” he says. “I operate a bicycle shop with my brother in Dayton, Ohio.”  He tells me that after the summer is over, not many folks in Ohio buy bicycles, so he’s got time to fool round with flyin’ machines and such.

As he’s talkin’ I’m thinkin’ in my head, A BICYCLE SHOP?  He runs a bicycle shop, and this dingbatter thinks he’s gonna build a FLYIN’ MACHINE? . . . But I don’t say that.

“You musta gone to some fancy college, eh?” I says.

“The truth be told, I never even graduated from high school.” 

Race for the Sky may be a bit slow in the first few chapters, but it quickly turns into an engrossing tale that will leave readers with a new admiration  for the story behind one of humankind’s boldest achievements—the ability to fly.

Race for the Sky: The Kitty Hawk Diaries of Johnny Moore  (Simon and Schuster, 2003) is middle-grade historical fiction as it should be.  Author Dan Gutman takes the facts about Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers’ first flight, and weaves them into the journal entries of Johnny Moore, a boy who lived in Nags Head at the time and actually witnessed the first flight.  Through Johnny’s journal we learn all kinds of interesting details and facts, and Race for the Sky makes you see and understand how truly remarkable the Wright Brothers’ feat was. Here’s an excerpt from a conversation between Johnny and Wilbur Wright: “Are you a scientist?”  “No,” he says. “I operate a bicycle shop with my brother in Dayton, Ohio.”  He tells me that after the summer is over, not many folks in Ohio buy bicycles, so he’s got time to fool round with flyin’ machines and such. As he’s talkin’ I’m thinkin’ in my head, A BICYCLE SHOP?  He runs a bicycle shop, and this dingbatter thinks he’s gonna build a FLYIN’ MACHINE? . . . But I don’t say that. “You musta gone to some fancy college, eh?” I says. “The truth be told, I never [...]

Wouldn’t it be awesome to discover you had magical powers?  Like Harry Potter—one day living a completely normal, nothing special kind of life, and the next day—poof!  Off to Hogwarts.

That’s exactly what happens to eleven-year old Abby Carnelia in Abby Carnelia’s One and Only Magical Power, a middle-grade novel by David Pogue (Roaring Brook Press, 2010).

 It’s another regular old evening helping mom make chef salad for dinner. Abby happens to pull her earlobes at the exact second she looks at a hard-boiled egg, and—poof!  She discovers she has a magical power.

What is it?  Super-strength?  Super-speed?  Invisibility?  Not eggs-actly.  Abby Carnelia’s one and only magical power is . . . she can make an egg spin. 

Yep, that’s it. That’s her magical power.  She can make an egg spin. Only if it’s hard-boiled.  Only if she’s looking at it.  Only if she’s tugging on her earlobes at the same time. 

Huh?!  What kind of a super power is that?   Ok, so Abby thinks it’s pretty weird too.  “Confused and just a little bit freaked out,” Abby says nothing to her family.  They think she’s learned some really cool magic trick, and Abby’s not about to let them in on the secret. 

Abby enrolls in a summer camp for kids who want to learn magic.  Maybe, just maybe, there will be other kids like her, kids that have real magic. 

Sure enough, Abby discovers other kids with special, albeit completely useless, magical powers.  There’s  Ricky who can fog up windows . . . but only when he counts backwards by two’s . . . in Spanish.  There’s Eliza who can levitate.  Ok, so she rise a quarter-inch above the floor and only when she thinks about buffalos walking backwards wearing diapers.  Still, it’s something. 

Abby will do just about anything to find out about her magical powers.  Unfortunately, others will do just about anything as well.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to discover you had magical powers?  Like Harry Potter—one day living a completely normal, nothing special kind of life, and the next day—poof!  Off to Hogwarts. That’s exactly what happens to eleven-year old Abby Carnelia in Abby Carnelia’s One and Only Magical Power, a middle-grade novel by David Pogue (Roaring Brook Press, 2010).  It’s another regular old evening helping mom make chef salad for dinner. Abby happens to pull her earlobes at the exact second she looks at a hard-boiled egg, and—poof!  She discovers she has a magical power. What is it?  Super-strength?  Super-speed?  Invisibility?  Not eggs-actly.  Abby Carnelia’s one and only magical power is . . . she can make an egg spin.  Yep, that’s it. That’s her magical power.  She can make an egg spin. Only if it’s hard-boiled.  Only if she’s looking at it.  Only if she’s tugging on her earlobes at the same time.  Huh?!  What kind of a super power is that?   Ok, so Abby thinks it’s pretty weird too.  “Confused and just a little bit freaked out,” Abby says nothing to her family.  They think she’s learned some really cool magic trick, and Abby’s not about to let them in on [...]

Well, the stores have been playing Christmas music since Halloween, so I suppose it’s well past time to review a Christmas book.

Little Star, written by Anthony DeStefano and illustrated by Mark Elliott (WaterBrook, 2010), tells the story of the Christmas star.  This gentle picture book answers the question so many children ask, “Where is the Christmas star now?” 

The Christmas star in this picture book is like the Little Engine that Could.  Little Star may be ignored by other big, shiny stars, but on the night of Jesus’ birth, Little Star is the only star that recognizes Jesus is a king.  Baby Jesus may be little, but he won’t be forgotten. Not by Little Star.  “Trying as hard as he could, he used all his strength and might to reach out with his light toward the earth.  . . . All through the long, cold night Little Star burned as brightly as he could so the baby Jesus could be warm.”

Little Star gives his life for baby Jesus, just as baby Jesus gives his life for all mankind.  This Christian picture book reminds readers that Christ, and Christmas, are all about love.

In honor of Halloween, check out  Mostly Monsterly by Tammi Sauer and illustratecd by Scott Magoon (Simon & Schuster, 2010).  Monster Bernadette is “mostly monsterly. She lurche[s], she growl[s], she cause[s] mayhem of all kinds.”  Bernadette also has a soft side which gets her into big trouble when she goes to monster school.

I met Tammy Sauer at the September 2010 Kansas SCBWI conference.  She gave a hilarious speech on about the life (and rejections) of a writer, and a fantastic presentation on her Top 10 Secrets to a great picture book.  Sauer’s  Chicken Dance with Elvis Poultry is my personal favorite, but my elementary schooler loves mostly Monsterly and has read it again and again.

In many a SCBWI conference, I have heard the name of Amber Brown, one of those unforgettable characters.  Likewise her creator, author Paula Danziger, who from what I can tell, was quite a character herself.  Paula Danziger has written over thirty books, several about divorce.  Amber Brown is Feeling Blue (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1998; this edition illustrated by Tony Ross) is one of these.

Amber is what you’d call a character. She’s got what you’d call personality.  She paints the dog’s toenails.  She puts candy corns on pizza:  “It’s a new reciple.  Try it.”  She loves her name Amber Brown (although she used to hate it because it’s also the shade of a crayon):  “It’s a very colorful name for a very colorful person.” 

But Amber’s also got a problem.  Where should she spend Thanksgiving? Her parents are divorced. Amber lives with her mom who will soon be marrying Max.  Mom and Max want Amber to go to Walla Walla, Washington to visit Max’s sister for Thanksgiving.   Amber’s dad lives in Paris, but he is moving back to New York.  He want Amber to spend Thanksgiving with him.  The grownups tell Amber, “. . . whatever you want to do, we’ll go along with it.”  And Amber thinks, “Why do I have to make the decision?”  

Amber thinks, ”I wonder if there is a kind of a dream that is worse than a nightmare.   Because that’s what I’m having right now.  If I go to Walla Walla with Mom and Max, Dad’s going to be unhappy.  If I stay here wth Dad, Mom and Max are going to be unhappy.  Either way, I lose.  Either way, one of my parents loses. At least, one of them wins.  But no matter what, Im going to be the loser.”

All this serious talk is mixed in with a lot of day-to-day fourth grade stuff–Halloween, new kids at school, book reports–and it doesn’t come across heavy-handed.     The book is honest about the emotions of divorce.  Amber thinks about the way things used to be.  When mom and dad were married.  When mom and dad got along.  And she wishes things could be the way they used to be.  But she has positives as well.  She likes Max, Mom’s new boyfriend. And she likes her new babysitter.  And she likes having two houses to stay in.

In the end Amber says, “I have to make the choice because I have no choice.  Sometimes life is confusing.  Sometimes it’s not easy.  This is one of those times when it’s both . . .  confusing and not easy.”  Amber Brown is Feeling Blue takes readers on that amazing roller coaster ride known as growing up, complete with all its ups and downs.

Have you ever wished you were an only child?  No annoying brother or sister.  Parents all to yourself.  Your own room and fantastic presents and giant birthday parties and fancy vacations and maybe even a pony (ok, maybe not the pony) . . . 

Abigail Iris has four kids in her family, schoolteacher parents that are always on a budget, and the same spring break camping trip to the same campsite with the family crammed in the same tent–year after year.  If only Abigail Iris was an “Only”–like her three best friends.

When eight-year-old Abigail Iris gets invited to vacation with “Only” friend Genevieve and parents, she jumps at the chance.  A fancy hotel, expensive restaurants, room service, lots of shopping.  How exotic.

But is being an Only really as wonderful as Abigail Iris imagines? 

Abigail Iris: The One and Only, written by Lisa Glatt & Suzanne Greenberg and illustrated by Joy Allen (Walker & Co., 2009), is a happy, light-hearted look at friends and family life (the cover illustration captures Abigail Iris’ spirit).  If you enjoy the literary heroines Amber Brown and Clementine, you’re sure to like Abigail Iris.

What kid hasn’t taken a pile of junk (aka treasures), combined it with a heavy dose of imagination, and then spent untold hours making something wondrous?  Violet Van Winkle does just that in Violet the Pilot.  Written and illustrated by Steve Breen (Dial 2008), this picture book captures the imaginative spirit that all kids seem to possess.

 While other girls her age play with dolls and tea sets, Violet plays “with monkey wrenches and needle-nose pliers.”  Violet also has the amazing good fortune of living next to a junkyard (how cool is that?), and thus has access to all kinds of amazing stuff (can you believe someone threw this away?)

 By the time she’s eight, Violet is creating “elaborate” flying machines.  Machines like the Bicycopter (think bicycle-powered helicopter), the Pogo Plane, and the Wing-a-ma-jig. 

Naturally, kids at school don’t understand Violet, and they tease her.  Perhaps if Violet wins the airshow, she can win some friends too . . .  But what if Violet can’t make it to the airshow at all?

This cliffhanger and others such as “What exactly is a Tub-bubbler?” are explored in Violet the Pilot.  Let your imagination soar with this fun picture book that encourages kids to dream big.

What do you do if you’re the new girl at school and no one smiles at you or talks to you or sits by you at lunch?  Well, if you’re Lissy, you make a friend.  You make an origami crane to be your new friend at your new school.

Author/illustrator Grace Lin uses wonderfully vibrant patterns and colors to tell the story Lissy’s Friends (Viking 2007).  As the new girl, Lissy hasn’t made friends yet, so she makes a paper crane to be her friend. 

After school Lissy’s mother asks her, “Did you make any friends in school today?”  She answers, “Well . . . I did make one friend.” 

Lissy makes herself more and more origami animals.  Soon she has a whole flock of origami friends.  And these paper friends keep her company and help her . . . until she can make people friends of her own.

As a girl, I read every Nancy Drew mystery written.  A few years later, I graduated to Agatha Christie.  Recently I ran across the book Nancy Drew and Clue Crew #1:  Sleepover Sleuths (Simon and Schuster, 2006).  I was surprised to see the author as Carolyn Keene since the original Carolyn Keene (a pseudonym for Mildred Wert Benson) died in 2002.  

A google search led me to this Fantastic Fiction link by a UK bookstore that shows just how many Nancy Drew spin-offs there are.  I don’t know if their list is exhaustive, but it blew me away.  Graphic novels, early chapter books, teen romances, Nancy teaming up with the Hardy Boys–Nancy really gets around. 

According to the BBC, “When [the author] attended the first Nancy Drew convention in 1993, she was reported to have told a friend: ‘I’m so sick of Nancy Drew I could vomit.’”  After seeing all the Nancy books on the Fantastic Fiction website, I can see why.

Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew is a series for the same set that reads the A to Z Mystery or Magic Tree House series.  In Book #1, Sleepover Sleuths, eight-year old Nancy and her two chums solve the mystery of “Who took Deirdre’s City Girl doll at the sleepover?”  The story is a modern day setting with computers, blogs, and American Girl doll knockoffs.

Needless to say, these books are nothing like the original Nancy Drew.  Nevertheless, the story is one that elementary school girls can relate to and enjoy.  And who knows?  It just might lead them to snoop out the real Nancy Drew when they get a bit older. . .

Mama’s Window by Lynn Rubright (Lee and Low, 2005) tells the story of “Sugar” Martin, a young black boy who lives with his uncle in a Mississippi Delta swamp.  For as long as Sugar can remember, his mother has worked to raise funds for a stained glass window for the Sweet Kingdom Church.  Some think her idea is foolish, but she insists that the window is important, that beauty is important. 

After his mother’s illness and death, Sugar clings to his mama’s dream.  When he discovers that the church has used the money to pay for bricks instead of a stained-glass window, he is broken-hearted.  Will mama’s dream ever be realized? 

St. Louis storyteller Lynn Rubright does a wonderful job recreating early 20th century life on the swamps of the Mississippi Delta.  Loosely based on the childhood of minister and civil rights activist Owen Whitfield, Rubright’s story was inspired by her research for a documentary on the Missouri sharecropper protest of 1939 (which was organized by Whitfield).  I met Lynn Rubright at a recent Missouri SCBWI conference, and found her warm, funny, and utterly charming.  Her novel also charms with a sweet tale of family, hope, courage, and generosity.

I’ll be honest.  I got this book exclusively based on the teaser quotes on the back cover:  “The new C.S. Lewis” and “Hotter than Potter.”  Wow! I thought. 

The first book in The Doppleganger Chronicles, The First Escape (Tyndale Press, 2008) introduces us to the Dopple twins, Saskia and Sadie, who have been abandoned at Isambard Dunstan’s School for Wayward Children.  Although their mother said she would return, the twins are now fourteen and she hasn’t returned.  Still they have each other to rely on.  That is, until the wealthy writer Muzz Elliott adopts Saskia . . . but not Sadie.   As Sadie joins forces with Erik Morissey Ganger (janitor and former orphan himself) in a scheme to reunite with her sister, twin Saskie unwittingly becomes embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy plot.  Soon all three are running for their lives. 

The tone of this book has a retro-Victorian feel akin to Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.  However, this book is quite different in that it is illustrated like a graphic novel with Asian-inspired manga-style art.  Tyndale Press  calls these books “illustra-novellas–a new kind of book designed to enhance the reading experience for a visually oriented generation of kids, especially reluctant readers.”  Think half novel, half comic book and you’ll have an idea of what this book is like.

British author G.P. Taylor is a former punk roadie turned Anglican minister.  He’s also the New York Times best selling author of Shadowmancer.   This “illustra-novella” is a different style book than you might be used to, but well worth reading.

Special thanks to my son, co-writer of this blog entry.

Steampunk fiction is a sub-genre of sci-fi “set in an era or world where steam power is widely used” (wikipedia).  Think 19th century Victorian England with a fantasy/sci-fi twist.  Scott Westerfeld’s steampunk novel Leviathan  (Simon & Schuster, 2009) is set during the beginning of World War I, and follows many of the historical events of World War I, and a big part of what makes this novel so fantastic is that it mirrors familiar events yet turns them on their head with imaginative techno-creativity. 

Young Prince Aleks, son of Archduke Ferdinand, must flee for his life after his parents are assassinated.   He makes his escape to Switzerland in a steam-powered “Stormwalker,” a vehicle is similar to a Star War’s AT-ST:                   

Deryn, the female protagonist, lives in England, a “Darwinist Power” which uses genetically altered animals to double as weapons.  For example, they have genetically altered whales so they can be used as giant airships–hence the name Leviathan.  Deryn wants to join the Air Corps which is barred to females so he disguises herself as a boy, gets accepted, and proves to be a top notch flyer.  Deryn is soon entrusted with a secret mission, which grinds to a halt when the Leviathan is shot down in Switzerland.  Suddenly Deryn and Aleks’ fate rests on each others’ shoulders. Leviathan is a great book about trust and friendship in unlikely circumstances.

In March I attended the Missouri SCBWI Agents Day.  One of the agents praised Dan Yaccarino’s The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau (Knopf, 2009) and sure enough, this is a fantastic picture book–biography, science, and nature all rolled up with wonderful text and artwork.  Check out this trailer.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”  A fire fighter, an Olympic speed skater, a veterinarian, maybe president of the United  States?   So You Want to be President? written by Judith St. George and illustrated by David Small (Penguin) gives the real scoop about being president. 

There are good things about being president:  a big white mansion, a swimming pool, a bowling alley, and a movie theatre in your house.  There are bad things about being president too: dressing up all the time, having people throw cabbages at you (ask William Howard Taft about that one), and nonstop homework.  

“Lots of people want to be President.  If you want to be President, it might help if your name is James.  Six presidents were named James.”  It also might help if you live in a log cabin.  “People are crazy about log-cabin Presidents” (there have been eight).

This fun, non-fiction picture book shares quirky, interesting facts and quotes from past presidents.  For instance, did you know that a female reporter once caught John Quincy Adams skinny-dipping in the Potomac and she “snatched his clothes and sat on them until he gave her an interview?”  John Quincy Adams also said being president was “the four most miserable years of my life” (perhaps because he couldn’t skinny-dip without paparrazi on his tail). 

So You Want to be President? is the perfect book for that kid who loves trivia and random facts.  You know, the kid who remembers obscure details about Albus Dumbledore’s family tree and would be a natural on the TV game show Jeopardy.

David Small’s Caldecott-winning caricatures of the presidents add an extra layer of humor.  Richard Nixon scowls as Warren Harding wins a presidential beauty contest and George H.W. Bush sits backstage green with envy (literally) as Ronald Reagan gets wild applause. 

Originally published in 2000, So You Want to be President?  was updated in 2004:  three presidents were now named George instead of just two and there was another father/son presidential duo.  With Barak Obama’s election, author Judith St. George will need to update the book again.  This time she’ll need to make an even bigger change:  deleting the words “No person of color has been President.” 

So You Want to be President? gives you plenty of inside presidential buzz.  Because, after all, if you want to be president when you grow up, it’s never too early to start preparing.

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s the dead & the gone (Harcourt 2008) is a companion story to her previous YA novel Life as We Knew (Harcourt 2006).  The novel takes the same cataclysmic disaster, but this time tells the story from the perspective of Alex Morales, a seventeen-year-old boy living in New York City.

When a meteor hits the moon and pushes it closer to the Earth, the change in gravitational pull causes massive worldwide destruction.  Tides rise, magma surfaces, tectonic plates shift, and soon the earth is enveloped by natural is –tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes.  Volcanic ash darkens the sky, temperatures plummet, crops fail.  There are evacuations, power outages, food and fuel shortages, deadly epidemics.  Lines of communication shut down–no radio, internet, cell phones, tv. 

 Thousands of people are dead, and most of Alex’s family are among “the gone,” as Alex refers to them.  These include Alex’s older brother Carlos who is deployed with the Marines, Alex’s aunt and uncle who evacuate soon after the disaster, Alex’s mother who has never returned home from her shift at the hospital, and Alex’s dad who has never returned from a family funeral in Puerto Rico.  They are “the gone”–never confirmed dead but nonetheless absent.  Just like Alex’s aunt and uncle who evacuate NYC soon after the disaster. 

Thrust into the role of protector and provider for his two younger sisters, Alex second-guesses his decisions and struggles to come to terms with overwhelming responsibilities  (including a nightmarish visit to Yankee Stadium–now morgue–to look for the body of his mother).  Dreams of being elected senior class president and getting accepted to a good college are totally irrelevant   in a world where survival is the only goal.

 What is essential?  What is important?  If life all changed tomorrow,  what would really matter?  Author Susan Beth Pfeffer offers another great novel that makes you question your needs, your wants, and your priorities.

 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’s going to 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.”