True Colors

Gr 4–6—A wholesome and satisfyingly predictable book, strongly evocative of Clare Vanderpool's Moon Over Manifest (Delacorte, 2010) and Jennifer L. Holm's Our Only May Amelia (HarperCollins, 1999). Blue, a softhearted 10-year-old farm girl, spends the summer of 1952 seeking to learn who abandoned her days after she was born. Kinsey-Warnock creates a nice balance between the fun Blue experiences in her small Northern Vermont town, where she lives with Hannah, the older woman who found her, and the tension she feels both in her friendship with a rich "summer" girl and about how some people treat a kindhearted, brain-damaged man. Hints and foreshadowing about missing animals and Blue's own mysterious heritage are deftly interwoven. Highly teachable with well-drawn characters and an engaging narrative voice, this novel also contains a well-integrated component about vocabulary and writing. Well-read youngsters will feel they've heard this story before, but in a good way: this is a sweet and worthwhile addition.Rhona Campbell, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC