THE WONDER OF CHARLIE ANNE

Charlie Anne makes use of her “most terrible mad look” with some frequency, but she’s most furious about her papa’s heading north from Massachusetts to build roads for Roosevelt’s New Deal, abandoning family and farm to the joyless clutches of her late mother’s cousin Mirabel. When not busy baking hard-times vinegar pies (almost like lemon!) or mucking out the privy, Charlie Anne has a lovely, supernatural way of interacting with the world; her recently buried mother, the river, the molasses-eyed cows and even the clothesline communicate with her regularly. Fusco’s mellifluous style often sounds like singing: “Go do this, the new mama tells me, and I do it, just because.” Two conflicts loom largest: dyslexic Charlie Anne’s battle with “jumbled letters” and her controversial friendship with an African-American girl who moves into the all-white community and stirs up its “backwater” hatred. Good humor, kindness and courage triumph in this warm, richly nuanced novel that cheers the heart like a song sweetly sung. (Fiction. 9-13)