20. Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall by Wendy Mass

read on my Kindle
2007 Little Brown Young Readers
251 pgs.
Contemporary YA told in VERSE form
Finished 2/26/18
Goodreads rating:  3.79 - 5250 ratings
My rating:  4
Setting:Contemporary America

First line/s:
"For fifty cents and a Gobstopper
I lifted my shirt for the neighborhood boys.
My older brother Matt caught us
and chased the boys with a wiffle bat.
Word got around, and at nine years old
I became the girl
other girls' moms
didn't want them to play with."

My comments:  Told in verse format, I guess you would call this a partial modern-day "Christmas Carol", since Tessa is only visited by the ghost of her past.  It's really cute and insightful, and sad, too.  Not SAD sad, just enough to feel badly for the little girl Tess was growing up.  And her future is yet to be written!

Goodreads synopsis: When 16-year-old Tessa suffers a shocking accident in gym class, she finds herself in heaven (or what she thinks is heaven), which happens to bear a striking resemblance to her hometown mall. In the tradition of It's a Wonderful Life and The Christmas Carol, Tessa starts reliving her life up until that moment. She sees some things she'd rather forget, learns some things about herself she'd rather not know, and ultimately must find the answer to one burning question--if only she knew what the question was. 
          Written in sharp, witty verse, Wendy Mass crafts an extraordinary tale of a spunky heroine who hasn't always made the right choices, but needs to discover what makes life worth living.

28. Every Soul a Star - Wendy Mass

For: Middle Grades & Middle School
Published: Oct. 2008
322 pages
Rating: 5

This is the second Wendy Mass book I've read and I've become a fan. She knows how to tell a good story. This one, told in three voices, is wonderful.

Ally's parents moved to the middle of nowhere when she was small. They run an unusual campground, the Moon Shadow. They chose this spot because it's the perfect place to see a total eclipse of the sun, and they've been preparing for it for years. Ally has been homeschooled, loves where she lives, and is an expert on the skies: comets, asteroids, stars, you name it. However, she knows very little about the world outside her domain.

Bree is a self-centered A-clique pretty girl who just happens to be the daughter of two scientific-geek parents. She has her summer...and her life...all planned out when her parents drop the bomb-shell that they are going to take over the Moon Shadow Campground, in the middle of nowhere, for three years. Bree and her younger sister will be homeschooled there.

Jack is a self-proclaimed loser. Pudgy, clumsy, and lacking any self-confidence at all, he has failed science and must attend summer school. When his science teacher propositions him to attend a two-week Eclipse tour to the Moon Shadow Campground as his assistant, he goes, but with great trepidation.

The three, of course, meet. They bond, along with two younger 10 year-old siblings and another male "camper" named Ryan, share astronomy adventures, and change, all for the better, of course. And readers learn a lot about astronomy along the way. It's a feel good book. I'm not sure how realistic it is, but I do feel that relationships like the ones formed in the book DO happen. There's even a wise old lady that always wears sweatsuts to get attached to. Lots going on. I did, indeed, enjoy reading this tale.

FIRST LINE: "In Iceland, fairies live inside of rocks. Seriously. They have houses in there and schools and amusement parks and everything."

I've done a little research on Wendy Mass. I like both 11 Birthdays and Every Soul a StarI'm going to read more of her this summer.

25. 11 Birthdays - Wendy Mass

2009
267 pgs.
Rating: 4
$16.99

This was a really cute story. It has the same premise as Groundhog Day with Bill Murray (which I've watched at least a half dozen times). Leo and Amanda have been best friends from birth. Born on the same day, "fairy" Angelina D'Angelo tells their parents that they should celebrate the birthday together every year, and with a few pushes and tweaks from her, it happens. But at their 10th birthday party, Amanda overhears Leo telling his friends that he's only doing it because he has to - hurting Amanda's feelings so badly that they don't speak from then on.

Zoom to their eleventh birthday. It is a disaster for Amanda, and she's confused and upset when the alarm rings the next morning when it's not supposed to - it's Saturday. Wrong. It's her birthday again. It repeats, with many of the same problems and sadnesses. Days 3 she feigns sickness to stay home from school, and when day 4 begins exactly the same way, as her birthday, she is fit-to-be-tied. That is, until she discovers that the same thing is happening to Leo - and nobody else. They make up, the have fun, the try to discover old and new clues that will help them break the "spell." We're certainly rooting for them!