THE EXCEPTIONAL MAGGIE CHOWDER

Twelve-year-old Maggie Chowder had been looking forward to a promising summer in Renton, Washington.

However, things get progressively worse after her father loses his job and takes an unpaid role in a web series to pursue his dream of acting. Several changes that Maggie is not ready for quickly follow: Her mother starts a stressful new job at a grocery store; the family moves from Maggie’s beloved home to a small two-bedroom apartment, where she has to share a room with her 4-year-old brother, Aaron, who has autism; and to make matters worse, Maggie’s comic-book–hating Grandma Barrel comes to visit and her parents cannot afford to send her to Junior Forest Ranger Camp although she desperately wants to become a ranger and protect the wilderness like her favorite comic-book character, Eagirl. Maggie finds that she is increasingly embarrassed about her family’s situation, especially since her best friend, LaTanya Richards, moves into a fancy new house and gets a puppy after her father gets a job coaching the Seahawks football team. But with time Maggie learns the value of family and friends. Lute’s well-rounded characters capture the difficulties of change, and Valentine’s black-and-white comic strips featuring Eagirl mirror Maggie’s feelings about her life. Maggie and her family seem to be White by default; LaTanya’s ethnicity is not specified.

Empathetic, realistic, and very enjoyable.