Ten Miles Past Normal

May 9, 2011
Making a confident move from middle-grade into YA, Dowell (Falling In) introduces readers to high school freshman Janie Gorman, a perky cool kid turned outcast. She encouraged her parents to move to a farm in North Carolina five years ago, but she now resents the change because her smelly farm chores, funky fashion sense, and her neo-hippie mother's blog keep her from fitting in ("hen I suggested we'd all be happier on a farm raising goats and baking bread, well, I'd meant it, but I didn't expect to be taken seriously"). Her friendship with her pushy best friend Sarah is feeling rocky, and as Janie slowly makes inroads with Verbena, a Sharpie-tattooed fellow outsider, and a musician named Monster, who unlocks her previously unknown musical talent, she begins to realize that coolness comes in many forms, and that being a wallflower isn't her style after all. "I'm the cute chick with the bass," she thinks. "Now that's a reputation I can live with." Janie's narration is sarcastic, contemplative, and sweet, which keeps this offbeat portrait of a tender age light yet believable. Ages 12âup.

March 1, 2011

Gr 6-10-When Janie was nine she persuaded her parents to move to a small farm. Now that she is 14, that life has lost some of its charm. She is rarely noticed at school, except for things like manure-scented shoes. Still, Janie is hopeful about high school, and she and her friend Sarah try branching out-joining Jam Band, making new friends, and working on an intriguing local-history project. There is a love interest (or two), and parental embarrassment, and Sarah's cool older sister to look up to. But none of these standard YA novel tropes is handled in a standard way. Dowell brings a completely refreshing take on the coming-of-age novel. Janie is not suffering through anything harsher than trying to find her place in high school. That can be difficult enough, as the author seems to know. Janie is realistic, smart, crabby, emotional, loving to her family, not overly dramatic. Dowell's writing is smart, lithe, and cheerful. The plot covers only a few weeks' time, and the story flies along. It's about making friends, keeping friends, trying to broaden horizons, meeting boys, seeing idols from a different perspective, and staying true to oneself without feeling lost in a big school. Throw in an interesting subplot about civil-rights history and you've got a rich book that will resonate with young teens who may not see themselves in other, darker, YA literature.-Geri Diorio, The Ridgefield Library, CT

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2011
Grades 7-10 Moving up to a big new high school can throw anyone off her game. For Janie it hardly helps her cool quotient that her family is into sustainable living on a farm well out of town. Old friends are no longer in the same lunch period, and boys might as well live on another planet. When she and friend Sarah track a boy they both like, the quest brings them to a weekly Friday-afternoon jam-band session and new musical and social vistas. Then a class project leads Janie to discover a couple of elderly townspeople who had been civil-rights leaders in voter registration, figures who deeply move her and enrich her view of both the past and present. Life turns around quickly, and somewhat miraculously, but this is a witty, poignant story about trying to fit in and finding a bigger world and a more secure self in the process.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2011
When Janie Gorman was a little girl, she wanted to live on a goat farm. She sold her dream so well that her parents actually moved to the country (Manne-ville, North Carolina) and started a farm. Now, though, she is a ninth grader who knows that showing up with goat excrement on her shoe is not going to get her into the popular clique. Janie narrates her first year in high school with her sure, smart, sarcastic voice -- probably the same persuasive voice she used on her parents. She lives far from her longtime best friend Sarah, with only her bicycle for transportation. High school becomes a little more bearable when two things happen: cute boy Jeremy Fitch and his jam band allow Janie into their group, and a school history project leads Janie and Sarah to aging civil rights activists. Dowell gets all the details of ninth grade right: the changing relationships with friends; the allure and disappointment of the forbidden boy; embarrassing parents; and how having a passion changes everything. The secondary characters are kids you would like to hang out with, especially Monster, the oversized, loving friend who is just too old to be Janie's boyfriend, and Sarah's cool, nonconformist sister Emma. Middle schoolers with an eye to the future will love imagining themselves into Janie's world. robin l. smith

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)