EVERY DAY AND ALL THE TIME

A clever protagonist surrounded by stock characters and setting heals after the death of her brother. Emily’s father skidded on black ice into a car accident that left Jon dead. Emily, a dancer, has a badly injured knee, her doctor mother hides grief by constantly working, and her father is drinking and unable to write. The devastated family is falling apart. Only Jon’s ghost, hiding in the basement, keeps Emily sane. But her parents want to sell the house since it reminds them of Jon—but if they do, Emily will lose contact with her brother. Through the winter, Emily sabotages the selling. Her efforts—ranging from lies culled from the stories of others to the simpler jelly on the banister—are amusing. As time passes, Emily’s sorrow lessons to acceptance, until she’s prepared to move on from her brother’s consoling ghost and start a new life. A likable heroine and a poignant story, but nothing else here to capture the imagination. (Fiction. 9-13)