Twelve-year-old Claudia Dalton panics when her dad mysteriously disappears, until he sends a postcard saying that he “needs a little time to think some things over” while he visits an old friend. Then he starts sending Claudia a series of mysterious clues in the form of jigsaw puzzle pieces. Claudia works hard to solve each one, hoping the solution will bring her dad home.

Dad, it turns out, has picked a thoroughly unusual way to reveal to his family that he’s gay, but the setup works brilliantly in The Jigsaw Jungle, Kristin Levine’s compelling portrayal of a family in the midst of transition. Levine knows exactly how such a transition feels, as her own husband and the father of their two daughters came out in 2012.

Adding to the excellence of Levine’s tightly drawn plot is the fact that this story is told in scrapbook form—as a series of emails, phone conversations, receipts, flyers and transcripts of old home movies—compiled by Claudia, who’s just trying to make sense of everything.

The Jigsaw Jungle has a wonderful cast of likable and believable supporting characters as well, each with their own issues. Claudia’s grandfather, Papa, is a recent widower, while her new friend Luis is a child of divorce. Levine’s novel adeptly shows how acceptance and change, as hard as they may be, are vital foundations for love. “I decided I’ll just have to get used to the pieces I’ve been given, even if they don’t form the picture I had imagined they would,” Claudia explains.

The Jigsaw Jungle is a triumph of a book, portraying sensitive family dynamics in a loving, engaging way.

This article was originally published in the July 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In Jo Watson Hackl’s Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe, young Cricket is motivated—with magical thinking and pure determination—to make things right with her mother, who left the family after Cricket’s grandmother died. In a moment of courage, Cricket takes advantage of being left behind in a supermarket and runs away from her aunt and bratty cousins. With a real cricket as a traveling companion, Cricket takes off for the woods to hole up for a little over a week, hoping and waiting for her mother’s reappearance on the anniversary of her grandmother’s death.

Equipped with supplies from the grocery store and her father’s survival manual, Cricket has some successes and major pitfalls in her outdoor adventure. She believes that if she can find the special “bird room” that her mother so often described, everything can be put right. While Cricket discovers clues that lead her closer to the bird room, more is revealed about Cricket and her mother’s relationship. Readers slowly realize Cricket’s mother has mental health issues, which form the cornerstone of this touching middle grade novel.

Hackl’s cheerful protagonist confronts difficult situations and issues with resolve and aplomb during her journey toward maturity.

This article was originally published in the July 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

BookPage Children's Top Pick, July 2018

Eleven-year-old Dorothy, better known as Donut, knows what she likes—taxidermy, poker and geography—and what she doesn’t—the prospect of having to leave her beloved Vermont woods for a new life in stuffy, crowded Boston.

The year is 1927, and Donut, whose mother died in childbirth, has been perfectly content in the life she’s led with her engineer father and the eccentric characters who occupy her remote corner of Vermont. But now, after her father’s death in a car accident, Donut is terrified of what a future with her Aunt Agnes might look like, hundreds of miles away from everything and everyone she knows and loves.

Desperate to avoid attending the girls’ school run by her aunt, Donut hatches a plan to take her dad’s innovative, collapsible boat and hide away in an abandoned cabin in the Vermont woods. But when a crisis strikes, Donut must reassess not only her own independence but also the meaning of family—and what it means to rely on one another.

For more than 20 years, debut novelist Daphne Kalmar was a teacher who loved introducing her students to the natural world. Her affection for the animals and landscapes of Vermont’s northern kingdom is apparent throughout A Stitch in Time, but what will really win over readers is her novel’s heroine. With her big heart and an openness to adventure, Donut is an affecting blend of toughness, vulnerability and fearlessness. A Stitch in Time would make a wonderful read-aloud and provides an opportunity for parents and children to talk about grief, love and self-reliance.

This article was originally published in the July 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Intrepid fifth-grader Mia Tang gets a crash course in capitalism when she oversees the front desk at the motel that her Chinese-American parents operate. Loosely based on author Kelly Yang’s experiences as a new immigrant to America, this story shimmers with good cheer, working-class realities and Mia’s unshakeable belief that people can make a difference if they pull together.

To help her family, Mia occupies the manager’s stool at the front desk, but folks aren’t too sure about her until she proves her managerial skills. Mia improvises by putting out a tip jar and makes improvements like creating a better key system.

Despite the Tangs’ hard work, they’re barely making a living because of the motel owner’s shady, untruthful tactics. Beyond this unfairness, Mia experiences racism towards herself in school, and towards one of the African American tenants at the motel. Front Desk also highlights a variety of immigrant hardships through the many visitors the Tangs give free respite to, at the great personal risk of losing their positions at the hotel.

But Mia learns just how powerful her pen can be to right the wrongs in her own backyard, and that honest and persuasive writing can make people come together for the greater good. Front Desk delights with its spunky main character who offers young readers lessons in being fearless.

From debut author Amy Makechnie comes a small-town romp as remarkable as its titular character.

Guinevere St. Clair has no ordinary life: Her mother can’t remember anything after the age of 13. But this unfortunate situation only seems to have increased Gwyn’s spunkiness. So when her father announces that the family will be moving back to their hometown of Crow, Iowa, in hopes of jogging her mother’s memory, Gwyn embraces the change. But soon she’s caught up in a mystery she didn’t anticipate and uncovering secrets from her mother’s past that she’s not quite sure how to deal with. Ready or not, Gwyn is about to learn that sometimes tending to feelings, both her own and those of the people around her, is more important than getting answers.

Makechnie’s rural Iowa setting is populated with unique and memorable characters, and she takes on serious topics with honesty and grace, always balancing the sadness with enough love and laughter to keep hope alive. And overall, that’s what this story is about: maintaining hope for a better future when it seems impossible. Even if the better future you get doesn’t look exactly like the one you had in mind.

This article was originally published in the June 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

With flying fish that fling themselves onto the doorsteps of its rainbow-colored homes, Allora is a charming seaside town unlike any other. But this quiet and quirky town also has a heartbreaking past—one that brings together the characters of The Boy, the Bird, and the Coffin Maker.

Thirty years ago, Alberto the carpenter lost his wife and three children to a plague that ravaged Allora. Alberto built five coffins—one for each family member he’d lost and one for himself. But Alberto survived. Now an old man, he notices that some food has suddenly gone missing from his home. He discovers that the thieves are Tito and Fia, a small, hungry boy and an unusual bird. After many weeks, Alberto befriends the pair and convinces them to live with him rather than in an abandoned shed on the outskirts of town. Tito reminds Alberto of his own children and his long-forgotten happiness, and he begins to teach Tito carpentry, how to read and how to grieve his dead mother—whom Alberto built a coffin for just weeks ago. When Tito reveals that he and his mother originally came to Allora to escape his abusive father, Alberto is determined to protect him.

With magical realism reminiscent of Gabriel García Márquez, author Matilda Woods has crafted a tender tale about the power of kindness in light of tragedy, accompanied by magical illustrations from Anuska Allepuz. Woods’ simple yet beautiful prose is open, honest and bears the soul of each of her characters.

This article was originally published in the June 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

When a girl is left on the steps of the Mostly Silent Monastery in Washington, D.C., wearing a shirt adorned with a picture of a bicycle, the practical Sister Wanda names her Bicycle.

Living with Sister Wanda and the mostly silent monks, 12-year-old Bicycle has found a contented existence, which reaches near perfection when she rescues a battered bicycle, lovingly dubs it Clunk and spends every spare moment cycling around town. Sister Wanda, worried that Bicycle has no friends, arranges for her to attend a friendship camp. Dismayed, Bicycle plots out a cross-country route to San Francisco to see her cycling idol, Zbig Sienkiewicz, and slips away on trusty Clunk.

Bicycle’s subsequent adventures have a modern fairy-tale charm. She and Clunk encounter a succession of quirky yet good-hearted characters, such as Griffin, a Civil War-era ghost, and the chef Marie Petitchou. Each chapter captures a snapshot of Americana: Bicycle leads a horse to the finish line at the Kentucky Derby, is mowed down by pigs on parade in Missouri and crosses the Continental Divide. Readers willing to suspend disbelief and roll with the silliness are rewarded with an enriched understanding of America’s vast landscapes and more than a couple easy-to-digest life lessons.

This article was originally published in the June 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.