LUCY ROSE: BIG ON PLANS

Armed with a journal as red as her yippee-yi-yo cowgirl boots, loquacious Lucy Rose’s number one plan is to write about her never boring life. Lucy is energetic and positive, but her life is a realistic blend of fun and challenges. Kelly has created a likable girl with a depth that resounds in the diary, evinces Lucy’s true self and mirrors her world. Her observations are keener, revealing more than she understands. Each word opens and exposes Lucy’s life and character: her joy as she sings show tunes for an elderly audience in a nursing home; her tenacity as she works on a craft at Parks and Rec.; her creativity as she tries to save her grandparents’ apricots from the take-a-bite and spit-it-out squirrels; and her hope as she tries to influence her separated parents to stay together. This latter comes through the strongest; it’s her priority, so she pleads in her heart and tries to derail a divorce and effect a reconciliation. The ache is palpable in what she writes and leaves unsaid. Continuing what she started in Lucy Rose: Here’s the Thing About Me (2004), Kelly offers rollicking fun with genuine heartache, preparation for the real world. (Fiction. 8-9)