Summer 2004 Review:

Even though I'm twelve myself, almost all the aspects of Lindy Perkins life are very different from mine. I live a comfortable life, in a nice house, but Lindy lives in a rented shack-like house near the highway. Her dad picks through trash cans to make trash sculptures. She and her dad have gone off the cliff ever since her little sister, Rebecca, died as a small baby. Lindy, A Philadelphian city girl, has to get used to suburban life in Shelbourne, from her knack for getting into trouble to her huge secrets which she hides from her new friends.  

Theresa Martin Golding, the author, has written other books I've never heard of, but may considering reading. At the beginning, I was having trouble getting through, but that was mainly because I was unsuccessfully trying to multitask. Once I abandoned my other activities and sat down to read, I was happy to find that my eyes didn't wander off the page. No, it wasn't utterly terrific, but I read through it with ease.

Through almost the entire book, the reader is left in suspense of Lindy's guilt about her baby sister's death. That's one thing that keeps you reading, you need to find out what happened there. Its a clever trick used by the author to hold your attention and, in this case, it works especially well.  

Lindy is also hiding from her friends and teachers where she lives and who her family is. A popular girl in her grade, Melissa, is determined to get through Lindy's lies. Lindy thinks Melissa will completely humiliate her, and things get worse when she sees a girl she thought she'd left behind at a softball game. This girl, Morgan, knows things about Lindy's past that she could reveal if provoked.  

One thing that was a little strange was Lindy's fear of two dogs living down her street. They were behind an invisible fence, but Lindy tells us she doesn't believe in anything invisible. Lindy thinks said dogs are going to kill her and her brother and then eat their mangled bodies. She throws gravel at them to prevent this, and she thinks the dogs owner is just trying to scare her when Mrs. Petra says she'll call the police. Honestly, though, any good owner would call the police at such unprovoked harassment to her pets, especially that with crazy reasoning behind it, with no basis in fact. Lindy is a fine character otherwise, but as a reader I saw this gesture as quite violent on her part, but I would still recommend this book to someone in fifth or sixth grade, because it shows you a real world that a lot of people dont know.

~ Emma Shebat, 7th grade, Canfield Village Middle School