Horn Book

The lives of two twelve-year-olds intersect for a brief time, with long-lasting positive effects. In suburban Boston, Izzy is struggling with her former best friend’s defection to the mean girl crowd. In New Hampshire, Wren is preparing for an upcoming figure skating competition. They meet when Izzy’s parents decide to make a little extra money by renting out their home for school vacation week (they’ll camp out in the apartment over the garage) and Wren’s family moves in so they can be near Wren’s little sister as she undergoes a life-saving operation. The situation is weird and awkward for both girls. They endure a school-vacation-week theater camp, Wren plotting nonstop to find some ice to practice on. Tension builds and an enduring friendship forms as a desperate Wren goes skating on an unsafe pond and Izzy pulls her out of the freezing water (shades of Little Women, the play the theater-camp crew is rehearsing) and as the two girls join forces to upend a social trap the mean girls set for Wren. Blecher (Out of Place, rev. 7/19) creates two authentic tween characters in quiet, artistic Izzy and tough, determined Wren. The family situations are believably portrayed, and the prose, though restrained, nonetheless gets right to the heart of things. “It was an opening, a crack in the door. Izzy could kick the door open and ask her mom what she meant, or leave it closed. Izzy chose closed.” MARTHA V. PARRAVANO