(3) 4-6 Twelve-year-old Minna Treat comes from a long line of woodworkers in historic Gilbrith. The pressure to win the village's junior artisan contest is suddenly amplified when she learns that her caregiver, Uncle Theo, may move them away. Then Minna begins finding glass bottles with mysterious messages, possibly related to her ancestry. True-to-life characters play well against the picturesque setting in this quaint family story.

Reviewer: Lisa Catherine Findlay

(3) 4-6 Magical realism and golf as a metaphor for life pervade Lawson's 1972-set novel about eleven-year-old Ben's struggle to come to terms with his father's recent death. Objects, including Daddy's ashes, speak to Ben, precipitating his journey from Alabama to Georgia's Augusta National Golf Club in the company of a secretive female runaway. Lawson's prose--lush as a golf course green--illuminates Ben's acute visual observations.

Reviewer: Miriam Lang Budin

(4) 4-6 Illustrated by Natalie Andrewson. In this pastiche of the classic country-house mystery, aspiring young detective Tabitha Crum, along with her pet-mouse sidekick and five other children, is invited to a mysterious countess's ghost-ridden Lake District manor. The dark humor, arch tone, and Dahl-like secondary characters wear thin in an overstuffed plot; the prose is lively, however, and Tabitha is a sympathetic heroine.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis

(3) 4-6 Becky Thatcher is determined to remember her deceased brother by having the adventures he should have had. She finds that Tom Sawyer is a tattletale, but his brother, Sid, is a kindred spirit; their exploits unfold with mischief and fun. Lawson, with her storyteller's ear for language, is respectful of Twain's classic as she tells alternate stories of St. Petersburg, Missouri.

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth