Paris for Two

Twelve-year-old Petunia is spending a year in Paris on her scholar father's sabbatical. Pet doesn't mind Paris per se--she's making friends and designing clothing for a youth fashion contest--but she's mortified to be in the same city as her ill-advised crush from home. In her own idiosyncratic style, Stone has created a grand, romantic, heartfelt tale.

Twelve-year-old Petunia Beanly's father, a Flaubert scholar, is thrilled to be spending a year in Paris on sabbatical. The rest of the family, not so much. Pet's fourteen-year-old sister Ava (their mother's darling) is prickly on a good day, and Mom, a frustrated artist, spends her time suffering ennui and badmouthing Ava's long-estranged biological father. Pet doesn't mind Paris per se-she's started to make friends (Collette, the concierge in her building; plus fellow resident Monsieur Le Bon Bon, his parrot Albert, and Le Bon Bon's eight-year-old nephew Jean-Claude)-but she's mortified to be in the same city as piano prodigy Windel Watson, her ill-advised crush-from-home. And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg for Stone's quirky, multifaceted characters. Her protagonists (The Romeo and Juliet Code, rev. 3/11; The Boy on Cinnamon Street, rev. 1/12) tend to wear their hearts on their sleeves, and here that's almost literally true: Pet, a budding clothing designer, is working on a collection for the "Sew! You're in Paris!" youth fashion contest, inspired by the beautiful doll clothing created by Collette's Nazi-resistor seamstress grandmother. In her own idiosyncratic style, Stone has created a grand, romantic, heartfelt (if somewhat meandering) tale that will make readers long for the city of light. elissa gershowitz