FINISHED:
Lord, Cynthia. (2014). Half a chance. New York: Scholastic.

[Lucy, her mother, and well-known nature photographer father move to a small town where the twelve-year old joins forces with a neighbor boy, Nate, to document loons living on an island in the lake on which they live.  Lucy, an avid photographer herself, begins taking pictures in order to win a photo scavenger hunt contest, but must find a way to enter anonymously as her father will be the judge.  Lord cleverly has her protagonist discover and explore her new surroundings through the lens of a camera, and along the way Lucy has experiences that will be all-too-familiar to tween/young adult readers. Including dealing with subconscious feelings of jealousy when Nate hangs out with another girl, Lucy also ends up pondering the ethics of submitting her photos under Nate’s name and using a photo that he has asked her not to enter; and beginning to get a taste of some of life’s harshest realities like the impermanence of life (unlike photographs which can capture something forever) and dealing with Nate’s grandmother as she begins to display signs of dementia.  With a pace that never lags, a believable and relatable lead character, and a tone that never becomes saccharine, Lord’s coming-of-age novel hits the right notes.]


STARTED:
Curtis, Christopher Paul. (2014). The Madman of Piney Woods. New York: Scholastic.

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