32. Ten Miles Past Normal - Frances O'Roark Dowell

2011, Atheneum
211 pages
for:  Middle School/young YA
rating:  very likable: a happy, easy, fun read for girls (4)

1st sentence/s:  "No one can figure out where the terrible smell is coming from, but everyone on the bus this morning can smell it and has an opinion."
Setting:  Contemporary "rurally" North Carolina, the high school is in town, but the protagonist lives out a bit on a small farm.

Janie Gorman has been miserable throughout her first months as a freshman.  Many middle schools have come together in her North Carolina town to become part of a huge high school, and it words out that none of her friends are in any of her classes OR eat the same lunch as her.  It doesn't help that when she was in the 3rd or 4th grade they moved from the central part of town way out to the country, where her family now lives on a small, self-sustainable farm.  She has her own goat, which she loves and talks to.  But this has not helped her non-existent social life at all.

Janie just wants to be "normal."  Well, she's more than normal, she's unique and special, but she doesn't realize it, as most 14-year-olds don't.  Starting the year by getting onto the school bus with goat poop on her shoe - stinky goat poop - doesn't help.  She knows no one at her lunch, so she crams her food down standing outside her locker and spends the period in the library. Her best friend, Sarah, is in only one class with her, and elective they chose purposely to be together.  It comes a the end of the day, and for it they have decided to research some older civil rights workers in their town.

However, wanting to belong as much as possible, it works out in a somewhat funky way that Janie starts to play bass guitar.  She teaches herself.  Fast.  It does not mention too much practicing, but she becomes fairly good.  Again, fast.  This was the one part of the story that needed work.  When Sarah and her sister, Emma, take up accordion, it never mentions any previous experience on the piano, but they are performing together in no time.  Didn't quite work for me.

But the characters did.  From her mom's futile attempts at crafting, her realization that Sarah is really quite bossy (and also her acceptance of it), to the boys she meets that year, all are interesting and pretty well crafted.  It was a quick, enjoyable read with a happy edge to it.  Perfect summer reading, and perfect for a whole lot of the girls I know.