Navigating new situations is hard. Starting high school? Really hard. Also hard: being the younger sibling of a brand-new high schooler who doesn't want to hang out anymore. Such is the bummer facing 12-year-old Cassi Chord, who narrates Beth Turley's finespun middle-grade novel The Last Tree Town.
When Cassi begins seventh grade, she finds herself in a Math Olympics class with a boy named Aaron Kale, who has just moved to Mapleton. His father has been relocating them from town to town, each named for a tree, ostensibly (but not exclusively, it turns out) because he's writing a book about "tree towns."
Not even Cassi's loyal cohort, which comes to include Aaron, can take her mind off her older sister, Daniella, whose sullenness began when school started and won't let up. Cassi has always looked up to Daniella, envying her cool and the way she resembles the Puerto Rican side of the family. (Meanwhile, Cassi burns easily in the sun and has reddish "scarecrow hair.") Cassi starts reading Daniella's diary in hopes of finding out what's behind her sister's "growing pains," as their mother puts it, although Cassi thinks there's more going on. She sees in Daniella's face "my sister but not quite. Like a smudged pencil drawing of herself."
The Last Tree Town charts one year in Cassi's life; in place of a conventional plot, the passage of time moves the story along. Turley (If This Were a Story) is a careful storyteller who has written a tender novel about how negotiating fine lines--between friendship and a crush, between sadness and something crueler--is part of the mixed bag that is growing up. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author