The Night Parade

Gr 5–7—A young teen learns to appreciate tradition and think more of others than herself after some unsettling interactions with magical beings. Nascent mean girl (or at least uncaring follower) Saki would much rather hang out with her—for lack of a better term—"friends" in Tokyo than accompany her parents and younger brother to her grandmother's tiny mountain village during summer vacation, but she has no choice. Almost immediately, she falls in with the wrong crowd, who goad her into a disrespectful act at her family's ancestral shrine, which, combined with lazy, uncaring preparations for the Obon ceremony, gets her in deep trouble with the spirits. Now Saki has three nights to undo the death curse she's brought down on her family. Her guides in the Night Parade include an untrustworthy four-tailed fox, a feathered tengu (a heavenly doglike creature), and a mischievous tanuki (a subspecies of raccoon dog) in the shape of a furry teapot. Saki has adventures of all sorts—funny, scary, dangerous, disgusting—and ultimately prevails, though not without whining, backsliding, giving up, and then starting over again and again. She is smug, sarcastic, and basically unlikable at the start but in the end is potentially nicer and more respectful, both of herself and others.