I, Emma Freke

Gr 5—7—Emma is resigned to the seeming reality that her name, spoken aloud, is her identity. Just 12, bright and nearly six feet tall, she feels invisible at school in her New England coastal town. Her mother, Donatella, owns a bead shop, and the many beads in her shop, with individual shapes, colors, and origins, are an apt metaphor for the novel's cast of varied characters. Quiet Emma, for instance, keeps lists to organize her life and often feels like the adult to her short, round Italian mother, who dresses and acts like a teenager. She wonders if she's adopted like her friend, Penelope, a nine-year-old from Liberia, who lives with her two mothers across the street and urges Emma to find her "joylah." Emma is dubious when Donatella proposes that she be homeschooled at the public library, but school officials agree to the proposal, and Stevie, a cool librarian, becomes her tutor. Then she receives an invitation to the Freke Family Reunion at a Wisconsin campground and flies out to meet the clan of Walter Freke, the father she's never met. The reunion proves to be a life-changing weekend, for Emma connects with cousins who look like her, gains a sense of belonging, and discovers her surname rhymes with Becky. Yet, upon seeing the rigid control enforced by the reunion organizer, she begins to appreciate her unstructured home life and confidently stands up against the culture of intolerance aimed at her eccentric, odd-looking cousin, who, like her old self, just doesn't fit in. A well-paced story told with heart and humor.—Susan W. Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Springfield, VT