The 12 Dares of Christa

Gr 5–8—Thirteen-year-old Christa's plans for her cherished Christmas traditions are upended by her parents' upcoming divorce. She spends the Christmas season with her actress mother, who is performing in a production that's traveling through Europe; her father, a travel agent, remains at home in Chicago. After the initial, traumatic announcement of Christa's parents' separation, the story skips forward five weeks and then slows down again to detail Christa's journey. She spends most of the trip to Florence, Paris, and London on a heavily scheduled guided tour with the other children of troupe members. The famous tourist sites they visit are depicted in glorious detail, and the other characters' full personalities emerge as the kids develop into a close-knit group. A package from Christa's father contains a dare, the first of the titular 12, each of which leads her to a specific landmark. Over the course of the voyage, Christa's relationship with her mother becomes more contentious and distant, partly because of Christa's unhappiness with her family situation. The protagonist has obsessive concerns about possible food allergies and deals with anxiety in general, but the exact cause of these issues is not fully explained. Christa's father addresses her anxiety by urging her to be more daring, and her mother, a rather one-dimensional character, complains that Christa is a drama queen. In addition to coping with family problems, the protagonist experiences a sweet, if predictable, romance.