I stumbled across this young adult book in our local independent bookshop (which has a lovely, extensive children's and young adults' section) and couldn't leave it behind. The story of Rachel Green's last summer before high school is a fast but rewarding read for an adult and should be entertaining for preteens. Rachel and her parents live in small town Sandy Bottom, Wisconsin, where they are generally well-liked but also considered somewhat eccentric. Rachel's mother stirs up trouble with the church choir, the school board, the mayor, whenever she thinks that trouble needs stirred. Her father is a beloved manager of a local dairy and over-enthusiastic conductor of the symphonies pouring out of his stereo in the den. The drama of the story comes when Rachel's father decides to conduct a local orchestra (despite having no real experience conducting) through Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky at the Fourth of July celebration he is organizing. Rachel has been hired to play second violin in the orchestra, so she has a front-seat view of her father's endeavor. Will he pull it off? Or will it be a disaster, forever securing Rachel's and her family's place as the town eccentrics and misfits?

The book excels at dramatizing the fears and concerns of a fourteen-year-old girl who thinks her family is not quite normal, and the narrative comes alive when describing the musical world, whether it be orchestra practice or the experience of performing major classical works on stage. While the writing is quite good on the sentence level, there were a few moments which threw me out of the story. I was, for instance, often startled by the point of view. The story is written in a third which is often extremely close to Rachel--so close, in fact, that I often forgot it wasn't in first, and I would become momentarily confused when the narrative did pull back to a slightly more distant third. And while the book handles several different threads (the father's conducting gig, Rachel's changing relationship with her childhood best friend, a first boyfriend, Rachel's relationship with music, Rachel's concerns about her family) very well, there are a few pieces which seem to be underdeveloped or left hanging. On the whole, a good read, and recommended to Keillor fans, classical music fans, and preteens (especially those who play in an orchestra or band or who are from a small town). ( )

slow reading pace

A nice collaboration between Garrison Keillor and his wife, who is a violinist, this is a good book aimed at adolescent girls (although I too enjoyed it). It is about a 14-year old girl in a small town, accomplished at the violin, who is attempting to find her own voice in a place that holds conformity as a value. No intense teenage angst, but a nice story. ( )