Ellie Ever
Gr 3-5–After losing both her father and her home in a hurricane, nine-year-old Ellie is grateful for a new start in life. She and her mother move to Virginia horse country, where her mother trains as a farrier to take over the family business and Ellie has a scholarship to an exclusive private school. At first she finds her new classmates snobbish and unfriendly, until a rumor starts that she is a princess. Suddenly everyone wants to be Ellie's friend, and she has a difficult time being honest about her modest background. This old-fashioned story has a hopeful tone and contains several supportive adult characters. Thematically it is similar to Patricia Reilly Giff's Wild Girl (Random, 2009), though for a slightly younger audience. Information about horses is well integrated into the novel. Full-page illustrations are scattered throughout. Though Ellie and her mother sometimes talk about their hearts being "wrinkled," the focus is more on being the new girl than about recovering from grief. By the end of the story she has made the right choices and is on her way to becoming the "best Ellie ever," just as her father had always wished her to be.Jackie Partch, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR© Copyright 2010.  Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.  No redistribution permitted.