Nature Girl

Megan’s parents have dragged her to Vermont for the summer, hoping she will embrace nature and art, but the bratty 11-year-old is furious to be trapped in the country. “You don’t know how I’m suffering. Nobody does. Nobody cares,” Megan tells her friend Lucy, who couldn’t come—because her mother has Hodgkin’s lymphoma. When Megan gets lost on a hike, she becomes inspired to hike the Appalachian Trail to where Lucy is staying. Along the way she confronts her own insecurities, which take the form of a “yucky voice” in her head, and discovers her inner strength, as well as compassion for Lucy. Readers may be put off by Megan’s histrionics, but debut author Kelley mostly plays them for laughs (further amplified in scribbly cartoons), as when Megan nabs the family’s emergency cell phone to call Lucy (“I almost cried when I saw its shiny surface. You won’t believe this, but practically everything else in Vermont is made of cloth or pottery or wood”). Megan’s emotional growth is mostly satisfying as she conquers both the mountain and her own weaknesses. Ages 8–12. (Apr.)