THE ACCIDENTAL ADVENTURES OF INDIA MCALLISTER

Growing up in small-town Maine, fourth grader India McAllister plans to have real adventures someday, but, for the present, daily life provides some accidental ones. India and her best friend, Colby, navigate the treacherous waters of a fourth-grade friendship between a boy and a girl. When Colby succumbs to the attentions of classmate Amanda the Rodent, India runs away to a bit of real adventure, getting lost in the woods. Family issues include India’s occasional longing to know more about her birth mother, back in China, and the way she misses her father. Now she can only spend weekends with her father and his new partner, Richard, a man she’s finding it difficult to know. Pets—her large dog and Richard’s new, talkative cockatiel—are also a part of her life. This gentle story is illustrated throughout with Agell’s line drawings, which add to the humor. (In some communities, the sketch of the plaster breast that hangs on the family’s living-room wall may provoke more than giggles.) Enjoyable, engaging and emotionally resonant. (Fiction. 8-11)