A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban c2007 is set today in a suburban setting. Witty, determined 5th grader Zoe Elias really wants to learn to play the piano more than anything. She is convinced that she could become a world famous concert pianist. She ends up with the Perfectone D-60, an organ! In short chapters, Zoe takes her readers along as she navigates her year learning to play the organ. Her friends take some unexpected turns (such as unlikely guy Wheeler Diggs) as do her mom, a workaholic accountant and her dad, who takes endless classes from the Living Room University. Every character in the book rings true. You will get to know and care about these people and their triumphs, big and small. This is realistic fiction that works for any reader.
Someone Named Eva by Joan Wolf c2007 is historical fiction set during World War II in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Germany. In 1942, eleven year old Milada's life is changed forever when Nazi soldiers invade her small village of Lidice. Based on real events, Milada's story traces her being separated from her family, sent to a strange school in Poland for nearly two years, and then adopted by a German Nazi officer's family in Furstenburg. Forced to learn and speak only German, taught only the Nazi way of life, Milada/Eva struggles to hold onto her real self and memories of her family. Told from Milada/Eva's point of view, you will experience this little known piece of the war's history through the eyes of someone near your age. Be sure to read the author's note at the end of the book. Joan Wolf gives the background of the real events and what has happened since including the memorial museum and garden that now exist on the site of the old Lidice village in the Czech Republic.
A Crooked Kind of Perfect is a book that will not put you to sleep! There are many surprises in the book that will shock you. When your reading A Crooked Kind of Perfect you cannot put the book down!
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