Hilary McKay

Jodie has never fitted in because she barely speaks to anyone ( selective mutism?) at her school. She is convinced to go on a school camp by her beloved teacher but the teacher pulls out at the last minute and Jodie is left floundering not knowing how to make friends with the other girls in her cabin she overhears talking about her. She goes on long walks by herself in the salt marshes despite being told not to, and keeps hearing the sound of a dog barking. This sound appears to be coming from the wreck of a submerged truck that only she and a strange old woman can see. She decides to investigate at low tide and finds a dog collar tied to the truck body. But then she gets stuck in the mud.....Who will rescue her when she has no friends?… (more)

Probably my 50th read in my life, but my first in quite a few years, though it's been living quietly on my bookshelf all the while because I couldn't bear to get rid of it. This series was really formative for me, right up there with His Dark Materials and Harriet the Spy and Harry Potter (though the last has obviously aged somewhat worse). In part, because it reflected certain parts of my life with an incredible closeness--I grew up in a house much messier and more full of the detritus of years than any of my friends', with a harried mother who did and does call everyone "darling", all of us often foraging in cupboards (unlike the Cassons, my dad was the primary forager and my mother the person who would think to buy a big can of baked beans for emergencies), full of spiders my father wouldn't let us kill and his various researches into macaque brains. I also was a sensitive, artsy kid who was worse at school than I was "supposed" to be, and I felt deeply seen by almost all the Cassons in turn. Obviously, this is a review that is as far from objective as it's possible to be, but I genuinely found it delightful and surprisingly nuanced this past reread. The plot is excellent constructed in a way that looks like chaos up until the end that you realize has been carefully built to this whole time, and all the members of the family feel fully realized and multidimensional.… (more)