GRASS ANGEL
by Julie Schumacher
Delacorte Press
ISBN: 038573073X
Ages 10-14
208 pages

Eleven-year old Frances Cressen believes that kids, not parents, are supposed to go to summer camp. So when Frances's mother signs the family up for a two-week spiritual retreat in Oregon, Frances is baffled. She refuses to go far away to a place called Mountain Ash. It doesn't fit in with her summer plans to visit Camp Whitman with her best friend, Agnes McGuire. This year they will go rafting and rock climbing since they weren't old enough to do so last year.

Frances tells her mother that she cannot go to Mountain Ash. There are only seventy-eight-and-a-half days of summer, and fourteen days in Oregon simply will not work. Frances thinks her mother has changed her mind, but then her weird Aunt Blue comes over when her mother is out and asks about Oregon. Aunt Blue brings sugary donuts to Frances and her seven-year old brother Everett every Sunday when their mother is at church.

Frances thinks her Aunt Blue is weird, clumsy and mean to her mother. She often makes comments about her mother's changing religions: "The week before, Frances had shouted at her because Blue had called Frances' mother fickle. Later, Frances looked the word up: Changeable, the dictionary said. Not reliable or steady ... the interest in different religions was a kind of hobby, that was all. Personally, Frances would not have used the word fickle." She didn't think it was a big deal that her mother had joined six different churches that year alone.

After many days of protesting, Frances gets what she asks for --- or so she thinks. Yes, she can go to Camp Whitman, but her mother and brother will be going to Mountain Ash without her --- for six weeks! And because Frances is too young to stay by herself, she will be spending the summer with her nutty Aunt Blue, who lives by the graveyard and has no social life. To make matters worse, Frances's house is being rented to a stranger, and Camp Whitman ends up being very different from what she expected.

GRASS ANGEL tells the story of an important summer in a young girl's life. The reader is instantly drawn in to Frances's world and is touched by what happens along the way. In addition to Frances, author Julie Schumacher creates strong characters like Aunt Blue, Everett, Frances's mother Anna-Louise, and Agnes McGuire, a devoted best friend. We are happy to journey through Frances's summer as she discovers what the most special things are in her life, and how important it is to appreciate them.

   --- Reviewed by Kristi Olson (zooey24@yahoo.com)

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