I picked up this book while doing inventory, and skimmed the first two pages. Then I put it on my desk to take a look at it in case I wanted to recommend it to some kids. Then I read the first chapter while taking a break. Then I read the second chapter during the dinner hour. Then I took it home and read the rest of it in one go. And when I finished it, even though there was nobody in the room, I looked up and said, "I loved this book."

I admit that the character is difficult to love, but so does she. She's not quiet, she's not polite, she's not organized or dedicated, or any of the things that adults value in kids. But I found this book funny, touching, and with just a touch of edge that helps keep me grounded in the fact that this face she's put on is her way of coping with a life of loss and displacement that could grind her down. Instead, she can use the front to defend herself from the best way she knows how.

I'm getting my son to read it next and tell me his review, just in case I'm nuts. :) ( )

I ended up skimming this after the first 50 pages. I didn't really care about the main character--actually, she annoyed me. She was putting up such a front to protect herself emotionally that it was hard to connect with her at all. And she kept making mistakes with common phrases and words, which I guess was supposed to be funny, but it just got on my nerves after a while. (For example, she would say "in a dizzy" instead of "in a tizzy", another character would correct her, and she would say that no, she meant "dizzy" and here's why.)

And the environmental themes and morals fell flat for me because they felt contrived. ( )

This is foster home number 12 for Whitney. But it just might be the one she needs, out in the woods where she can run off all her extra energy. She may be small, but she's got a big mouth and a tendency to cause trouble.

Forest Glen is a lumbering town, but thanks to the environmentalists, almost everyone is out of work, including Whitney's stepfather. Then the logging company gets permission to cut in the forest around their home. There will be work in the community, but what will Whitney do to protect her favorite tree? ( )

Whitney has been in eleven other foster homes, but life with the McCrary's turns out to be surprisingly different. First of all, they live in the middle of nowhere- a small town called Forest Glen that's in the middle of the woods and going through an economic slump since the logging company laid off 3/4 of their employees. Second, there are lots of other foster kids in her class at school. Families have taken them in for the government check to tide them through the hard times. Whitney's used to being a foster kid, but what she doesn't expect is to fall in love with the forest and all the animals it holds. Whitney helps start an ecology club at her school, but there's one problem... Most of the townspeople don't look favorably on environmentalists because that's why they've lost their jobs. Can Whitney change their minds?

It's The Great Gilly Hopkins meets Hoot. Whitney is funny, irreverent, and irrepressible. ( )