Under the Egg, by Laura Marx Fitzgerald

Theodora Tenpenny may live in Manhattan, but it's not a glamorous existence for her.  She lives in a ramshackle house with her absent minded math genius mother and her grandfather Jack.  But right on page 4, Jack is killed and leaves Theo only with the dying message of "Look under the egg."

Not much for a 13 year old who is trying to keep it together to go on.  So between gardening, taking care of her chickens and pickling for food, scanning the streets for useful objects and caring for her mother, Theo needs to unravel what her grandfather's wishes were.

Theo is up in her grandfather's art studio one day trying to figure out the mystery when a mouse runs up her leg and she jumps up and spills some rubbing alcohol on one of Jack's paintings - the painting unlike his other paintings.  The egg.  As Theo desperately tries to clean the rubbing alcohol off, the colors smear and smudge and she is devastated at losing this last bit of Jack.  But when she looks closely she realizes that under the egg, a different painting is revealing itself.  Could this be what Jack's dying words were about?

Theo is at a neighborhood diner owned by a friend of Jack's where she forms an unlikely friendship with Bodhi - another 13 year old who has just moved down the block and happens to have Hollywood parents.  Where Theo's existence is positively Little House on the Prairie, Bodhi's is the Jetsons in comparison.  Theo surprisingly lets Bodhi in on the secret painting, and soon with Theo's art history knowledge and Bodhi's internet skills, they are on the trail to the truth.

Woven into the text are explanations of fine art, as well as bits of history involving WWII.  There are also real life bits of NYC living including the Staten Island Ferry, Grace Church, the Met and the Jefferson Market Library.  All of these true things had me actually google Spinney Lane to see if it was one of those Manhattan streets I've walked by a million times but not walked down.

This is a solid summer mystery with a really fantastic sense of place.

The Secret Hum of a Daisy, by Tracy Holczer

Grace is used to traveling from place to place with her wandering mom, so when she passes and Grace has to stop, she is worried.  She knows that if she could just stay with Mrs. Greene and Lacey she will be alright.  But that is not the plan.  The plan is that she has to stay with her grandmother.

The problem is, she never met her grandmother before.  In fact, all she knows about her is that she kicked her mom out of the house when she was a teenager and pregnant with Grace.  Grace feels that if her grandmother didn't want her then, how can she possibly want her now?

Once she lands in her mother's hometown, she starts to see signs and find clues that her mother is still with her.  It's just like when she was younger and they would move to a different place -- her mother would send her on a scavenger hunt through the town.  This time, it all starts with an origami crane, stuck in the bushes on Grace's first day of school after the funeral.  "Mama thought birds were signposts sent to let us know we were headed in the right direction.  We'd look for birds on road signs, in murals or billboards, anywhere they might show up.  So I took that bird as a sign of encouragement." (pg. 57)

But is Grace on the right path?  Is trying to make her grandmother angry so she will send her back to Mrs. Greene the right thing to do?  Or should she stay in her mama's town and learn more about her mama, her late father and grandfather and her grandmother as well?  Should Grace give her a chance?

This is less a story of loss than it is a story of finding oneself.  Grace is quiet and thoughtful and is torn apart with her idea of Before mama died and After mama died.  The passing of her mother is fresh (days old at the start) and the reader joins Grace on this journey of trying to do more than simply exist in the After.  The Secret Hum of a Daisy possesses a simplicity that I find refreshing.  There is a poetry to the prose that is as far from flowery as you can get, but manages to land just right.  Several times I had to pause, close the book and just sit in wonder for a moment.  This is one that will simmer with you for a very long time after you read the final words.

Beautiful.

Surviving the Applewhites, by Stephanie S. Tolan

Jake is the textbook juvenile delinquent. He has been kicked out of every public school in Rhode Island, and was shipped down to Traybridge North Carolina and his grandfather. Jake managed about 3 weeks at Traybridge Middle School before he was asked to leave as well. Lucille Applewhite had been conducting a poetry workshop at the school when Jake got kicked out and she suggested that Jake attend the Creative Academy: a home school that the Applewhites ran out of their home.

E.D. can’t imagine why Aunt Lucille thinks that their home school can help Jake when so many others had failed before. Then again, Aunt Lucille tends to see the good in everyone. Jake doesn’t exactly want to move into the Applewhite’s place either, but his social worker told him in no uncertain terms that it was this or Juvenile Hall.

When Jake arrives with his scarlet liberty spikes, piercings, foul mouth and cigarette habit, he doesn’t get much of the reaction that he is hoping for. Aside from the smoking, nobody seems to care. In fact, the family parrot swears more than he does.

The Applewhites are a family of artists with a capital “A”. The kind where the grown ups are too busy creating to go grocery shopping, forget to check in on the kids home school lessons, and can even forget what day it is. So Jake is left up to E.D. who is the lone organized, structure-loving member of the family. Neither of them are pleased and they manage to pretty much ignore each other.

It’s not until E.D.’s director dad gets asked to direct a community theatre production of the Sound of Music that everyone’s talents (even E.D.’s) get put to good use. Jake comes to see that he can separate himself from what his parents have made him.

With a cast of kooky characters, an angry goat, a scene stealing 4 year old, and a common goal, Stephanie S. Tolan has written a charming and thought-provoking story about family and self. How we define ourselves doesn’t have to mirror our parents and siblings, but each of us does have some definition of place within the idea of family. A Newbery Honor book for 2002.