DO-OVER

Deriso explores the possibility of having dreams coming true in this light comedy, told in the first person. Twelve-year-old Elsa Alden is overjoyed to be moving with her dad to a new town to live with her maternal grandmother, but is less enthusiastic about starting a new school in the middle of seventh grade. Predictably, her first day doesn’t go well. Soon after, Elsa’s dead mother visits her and gives her a magical pendant. For one month, Elsa can rewind the world for ten seconds by saying, “Do-over. . . . Just long enough to fix an embarrassing moment. For one month only.” The pendant offers Elsa many opportunities, from stealing answers to passing on gossip. When Elsa is accused of cheating, she makes plans to give Darcy, the most popular girl in her class, her comeuppance, yet is unable to follow through with Darcy’s ultimate humiliation. Though her comments seem older than her years (the seventh-graders are reading To Kill a Mockingbird), middle-schoolers who long to be popular may find this somewhat predictable story enjoyable. (Fiction. 9-12)