NOBODY’S PERFECT

Celebrating deafness and a unique character, Matlin brings back Megan from Deaf Child Crossing (2002), returning full tilt from summer camp, ready to invite every girl in her fourth-grade to her perfectly purple birthday party, everyone except Alexis, the new girl who appears to abhor deafness. Alexis’s apparent, callous rudeness challenges Megan not to rush to judgment, but to follow her family’s strong influence to gather facts and not react to feelings alone. She uses all her talents, control and charm to be caring of Alexis as a human being, and by torturously pushing aside easy anger, Megan wins the truth and discovers Alexis’s personal motivation: an unsettled relationship with an autistic brother. The miracle that she brings to Alexis’s family is worth all the suffering. Megan is all purple feathers, glitter and friend, endearingly sincere with an intense energy that explodes with action on the page, shaking her world with an internal struggle worthy of a heroine. Heads above the companion volume. (Fiction. 9-11)