Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World

Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World  by Ashley Herring Blake

Ivy is 12 years old (almost 13!), and feeling adrift following the birth of baby twins in the family.  Her friends are just starting to think and talk about boys, but Ivy is starting to think about girls.  Then, Ivy's world literally flies apart:  a tornado flattens her house and leaves her family homeless.  

Ivy is a smart, talented, and creative protagonist who finds more than a little help from friends--new friends and familiar friends.  

This is a beautiful, sweet middle-grade book about Ivy and her family and friends, and their attempts to find their own places in the world.  Highly recommended for readers ages 10 and up.

Drag Teen

Drag Teen by Jeffery Self

18 year old JT is stuck in Clearwater, Florida where the water isn't clear.  He dreams of life somewhere--anywhere--else, but his family is content running a roadside gas station and eating food from the dollar store, and they consider a few classes at Clearwater' Tech School sufficient "higher education" for their vision of JT's future.  No support there. 

JT's boyfriend Seth proposes a solution:  a drag queen competition for teens in New York City.  The prize for first place is a four-year scholarship.  Why would JT, a talented singer and drag-queen wannabe, not want to participate?

The answer to that, and some other stuff, is the guts of this book. 

Part unlikely-road-trip adventure, part fish-out-of-water drama, part coming-of-age story, Drag Teen is a fun read.  Sure, the plot relies too heavily on coincidence, and some of the characters were so two-dimensional that it's a wonder they could get Spanx to stay on, and clearly the narrator's personal arc was copied from some old "afterschool special" formula, and the ending was completely non-credible. 

But for all the weaknesses, I enjoyed reading this book.

Recommended for readers ages 12 and up.