Sixth-grader Felicity Juniper Pickle knows her first name means "wondrous joy," but these days she just feels tuckered out. She and her little sister, Frannie Jo, have already lived in six states. As they drive into their mother's hometown of Midnight Gulch, Tenn., Felicity has a glimmer of hope that this might be their last stop.
Midnight Gulch was once a magical mountain town, but most agree the magic vanished decades ago with the feuding Brothers Threadbare. Felicity dives into the town's secrets with the help of the "weirdly wonderful" Jonah Pickett, a boy in a wheelchair who may be her first friend ever. Does she, the frequently tongue-tied "Queen of Dorkville," have some of that town magic in her veins... even if only a leftover "snicker?" Is her family--is she--somehow the cursed party in a long-dead witch's cryptic riddle? Sometimes Felicity finds answers in the sky. A "word collector" and "poem catcher," she sees words everywhere. She starts to realize that magic does still live in the citizens of Midnight Gulch. Dr. Zook's Famous Ice Cream Factory adds a Willy Wonka touch to the enchanted town.
Felicity's passion and knack for words shapes the book. As flurries of words appear to her, she scribbles them in her blue notebook or on her shoe, and they are scattered throughout the story to "shimmer-shining" effect. This buoyant, soul-satisfying debut novel is a synesthetic, "fine as frog hair" story of love, hope and magic told in poetry, banjo chords, curling smoke and pounding hearts. --Karin Snelson, freelance writer and children's book editor