A CROOKED KIND OF PERFECT
by Linda Urban
Sandpiper Books
Hardcover: 9780152060077
Paperback: 9780152066086
Ages 8-12
336 pages

When 10-year-old Zoe Elias sees a documentary about the legendary pianist Vladimir Horowitz, she is instantly hooked. She knows that she wants to play the piano like Horowitz, to be a prodigy and to appear onstage at Carnegie Hall. In Zoe's daydreams, music, fame and really fancy shoes seem to go hand in hand: "And then you lift your hands high above your head and slam them down on the keys and the first notes come crashing out and your fingers fly up and down and your foot --- in its tiny slipper with rubies at the toe --- your foot peeks out from under your gown to press lightly on the pedals. A piano is glamorous. Sophisticated. Worldly."

As usual in Zoe's life, though, her daydreams are worlds away from her everyday existence. In real life, Zoe is just a girl whose best friend has abandoned her, who is ostracized for wearing funky toe socks because, as a popular girl points out, "'Nobody wears socks. Everybody knows that.'" She's not even a girl who plays the piano, because her well-meaning father has bought her a Perfectone D-60 organ. Instead of transforming into a piano prodigy, Zoe struggles to learn the theme songs to “Gilligan's Island” and “Green Acres.”

Soon enough, though, Zoe discovers that her organ playing just might be causing some unexpected transformations after all. Her lovable but anxiety-ridden and agoraphobic father, who has always spent his days earning absurd "degrees" through correspondence courses by Living Room University, loves dancing around to Zoe's music, especially when she turns on one of the bouncy rhythm accompaniments. Zoe's playing also earns her the respect of a most unexpected friend, one who might love Zoe despite (or even because of) her dorkiness and who might also help Zoe's dad at the same time. Most importantly, Zoe might just have the chance for that Carnegie Hall moment --- or something like it --- when she enters an organ-playing competition.

The theme of Linda Urban's wise, witty and utterly realistic debut novel is voiced by none other than Vladimir Horowitz himself: "Perfection itself is imperfection." In other words, when you're playing the piano, even if you get every note exactly right, you still won't be making music. In A CROOKED KIND OF PERFECT, Zoe learns that in life, as in music, it is possible to accept --- and even embrace --- the flaws in ourselves and those we love.

Zoe's family is particularly realistically drawn, warts and all. Her father, so paralyzed by anxieties that he can barely leave the house, recreates their home environment, down to the tablecloth on the table and the pictures on the wall, when they stay in a hotel. Her mother, a workaholic state controller who believes that everything in life can be reduced to a ledger sheet, breaks Zoe's heart as often as she balances a budget. And Zoe herself can be timid, worried, resentful and suspicious --- but readers will love her, and her loving family, anyway. Zoe's Horowitz daydreams might not come true --- exactly. But she discovers that holding onto those dreams --- and being willing to create new ones --- just might be what she and her family needed all along.

   --- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

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