You live on a rhubarb farm where the rhubarb tastes like chocolate? And it rains everyday at 1:00pm? And there's a lake in which nothing can die? Try explaining that to your friends at school. Eleven-year-old Polly lives with her family on just such a farm and she's felt like an oddball at school for years but now she has a chance to start over at a new school where everyone won't know her life story. But, life is about to hand Polly some hard punches. Forever her best friend has been a plant named Harry. He talks to her and she can tell him everything that's on her mind. But when things start to unravel, Polly attacks Harry and rips him apart until he's just one little root. The rain stops raining at 1:00pm. And her brother, Freddy, is suddenly slumped on the couch feeling like the breath's been knocked out of him. Is Freddy the one who is sick? "If it stops raining for good, does that mean that Freddy's going to die?" Polly has expected the adults in her world to take care of all of the problems up until now but she is about to take a journey into a whole new world and it's one in which she finds out she has the tools in herself to handle her own fears and to solve her own challenges. Can she keep the family from selling the farm? Can she bring back the rain? Can she save Freddy? And Harry, what about Harry?
Here's a new one for kids who like magic and a bit of coming of age. Captures the combination of the sense of both the magic we want in the world and the strength we have to build in ourselves. 368 pages Ages 9-12
