My Father’s Words

My Father’s Words by Patricia MacLachlan, 135 pages

Fiona’s world is turned upside down when her father is killed in a car accident.  She, her little brother Finn, and her mother have to learn how to cope without their father.  While Fiona struggles, she thinks that Finn has a harder time than she does.  She wants to help Finn but isn’t sure how.  Their neighbor, Luke, finds an opportunity volunteering at a dog shelter.  Fiona hopes that Finn will respond to the dogs’ need and be able to find a way to deal with his feelings.  This was a sweet book for younger chapter book readers.

Teen Spirit

Teen Spirit by Francesca Lia Block             234 pages

Julie’s life has been pretty decent.  She doesn’t have a lot of friends, but she, her mother, and her grandmother have always been close, and Julie has always felt like that was enough.  When her grandmother dies, everything starts to fall apart.  A week later her mother loses her job and reveals that they are about to lose their house.  They are forced to move to a small apartment and her mother seems to retreat into her own world, leaving Julie feeling completely alone.  She makes one friend at her new school, Clark.  Clark is kind of odd, but really nice.  They become study partners and Julie tells him a little of her story.  One night, she asks him to help her try to contact her grandmother’s spirit.  Julie feels like she is close, but she can’t break through.  Clark reluctantly agrees, and they do contact a spirit, but it isn’t Julie’s grandmother.  It seems they have contacted a more malevolent spirit and Julie and Clark have to figure out how to fix things before the spirit can do irreparable harm.  A good, supernatural, love story, lots of teen fans of ghost stories and romances will like this.