A LITTLE WANTING SONG

Rose is a restless, passionate science student who longs to flee the Australian bush. Charlie is a lonely singer/songwriter from Melbourne who spends the summers with her widowed father and grandfather in Rose’s small town. The two girls have never been close, but when Rose wins a scholarship to a city school, she ascertains that a friendship with Charlie may expedite her escape plan. Both girls are positively altered by the relationship, which is calculated on Rose’s part but soon becomes sincere. Bold Rose learns compassion, while sensitive Charlie develops a thicker skin. Each teen is also navigating a complicated romance—Rose with reckless Luke, whom she loves but would not hesitate to leave behind, and Charlie with Dave, a shy mechanic kept under his father’s thumb. The dialogue is lively and realistic, and Charlie’s quirky song lyrics add a pleasing poetic element to the narrative. Told in two distinct voices and replete with vivid images of ghosts, music and nature, this heartfelt, reflective novel is a natural read-alike to Jandy Nelson’s The Sky Is Everywhere (2010). (Fiction. 13 & up)