June Sparrow and the Million-Dollar Penny

Gr 4–6—June Sparrow is an affluent 12-year-old orphan living in New York City with her precocious pet pig Indigo Bunting when Mr. Mendax, her legal guardian and the CFO for her late parents' company, is arrested for being involved in a Ponzi scheme. Now June is broke and sent to live with her mother's curmudgeonly older sister, Aunt Bridget, in a small rural town in South Dakota. Soon after she arrives, June discovers her mother's Penny Book—a diary that chronicles her mother's coin-collecting hobby when she was a teenager—and a cryptic message that is supposed to lead to "The Big One," a rare penny worth enough money to make June rich again. Chace's first foray into middle grade is unfortunately underwhelming. Although she is 12 years old, June acts much younger, and her adjustment from pampered city life to rustic farm life is not deeply developed. The mystery surrounding the odd message her mother left behind is not particularly enthralling, nor are June's efforts to decipher it, as the girl mostly stumbles upon clues out of sheer luck rather than by using any real ingenuity. The novel's conclusion is too convenient, and while June chooses to stay in South Dakota with her newfound family and friends, she hasn't changed very much as a character, especially since she ends the book almost as wealthy as she began.