ICE

When she was ten, Chrissa's father disappeared. For three years she's tried to find out what happened to him, but her mother's not talking. Their relationship becomes so strained that her mother sends Chrissa away from New York City for a year, to the rural home of her paternal grandmother. Chrissa is angry and resentful, especially once she realizes that she'll get no information from Gram, either, but she slowly begins to settle in. Two subplots—one involving a religious charlatan, Sister Harmony, who plans to bilk Gram out of her savings and property, and another involving a man who plans to kidnap his children from the home of his estranged wife—vastly undermine the real story: the thawing of Chrissa's heart. On top of that, there's a melodramatic reason behind her father's disappearance—he's in prison. The most believable people in this book are the ordinary souls—Gram with her homely ways, new friend Thad, with his boy-next-door wholesomeness, and Chrissa, whom readers will come to admire as she takes control of her life. (Fiction. 10-14)