STRANDED IN BORINGSVILLE

What’s worse than your parents separating and your workaholic father moving in with his self-centered girlfriend? Going to live in your grandmother’s old house in Clarkson, aka Boringsville, where a wood stove heats your water, possums inhabit the roof and there’s no pizza place. But then Rain befriends next-door neighbor Daniel, a social misfit and passionate Star Trek fan who shows Rain her first platypus. She becomes Daniel’s fierce protector (especially when a secret medical condition comes to light), loving admirer of her mother’s independence and maybe even a Star Trek fan herself. In this rewarding story from Australia, Rain’s refreshing narrative is occasionally juxtaposed with Daniel’s “Captain’s Log” entries and by mother-daughter exchanges in thoughtful magnetic fridge poetry. Just as the move to Clarkson has prompted changes in Rain, her newfound confidence is a catalyst for positive changes in those around her, even in unlikely snobs, bullies and cliques. For Rain, Boringsville is simply a state of mind. (Fiction. 9-12)