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 If I'm not reading crime fiction, I like stories about families: Anne Tyler novels, Nicole Holofcener movies, short fiction by Katherine Heiny. It's a special gift to be able to pay close attention to domestic life, and to find suspense in a breakfast encounter, or a discussion about car-pooling.


Rebecca Stead has many admirers, and they are heavy-hitters: Maile Meloy, Patricia Reilly Giff, Meg Wolitzer. Stead's trick is to write about characters, not issues; if you do this well, you can reach children *and* adults (even if you're ostensibly focused on the non-adult world of third-grade lunches and sleepovers).

Bea, one of Stead's heroines, is excited to churn butter for the colonial fair at her school. But her feelings get the best of her, and she foolishly kicks a shard of glass (while wearing open-toed sandals). Impulsivity is an issue for Bea. Distressed by a game of Musical Chairs, she half-shoves a friend off his seat; later, she gets pissed at the party's (insufferable) adult hostess, and she throws a bowl of candy at a fragile, mounted painting. Also, in an understandable moment of rage, she pushes an obnoxious cousin out of a loft-bed.

In the background, wedding prep is occurring; Bea's father has announced that he is (oops!) gay, and he will be marrying a man. The wedding is never used as an opportunity for sermonizing--and it's also not the simple cause of all of Bea's regrettable behavior. But it's not *not* a cause. This feels like actual life.

Reading Bea's story, "The List of Things That Will Not Change," I felt as if I were having a run-in with the ghost of Beverly Cleary, and this is high praise. Stead sees things others can't see; she is a natural. I miss Bea, now that I've reached the last page.






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