This is "juvenile fiction" for the 10 - 13 age group, and it's just superb. It is a sequel to Hill Hawk Hattie, in which we meet the narrator of both books, Hattie Bell Basket, a 10-year-old girl who, after her mother's death, embarks on a rafting expedition with her father on the Delaware River, disguised as a boy. In Hattie on Her Way, Hattie's father takes her to live with her "high society" grandmother (who she has never met before) in a gingerbread house overlooking the Hudson River, so she can get a good education. After a rocky start, Hattie and her grandmother start to warm up to each other, but there is a mystery hanging over the house and Hattie is determined to learn the truth about her mother's past, as well as her grandfather's mysterious disappearance. This is the fifth book Clara Gillow Clark has written, and she gets better with each one. I read her first out of curiosity, because we knew each other as kids, and because she was writing about people and places familiar to me. (One of my distant relatives hunted snakes with the "rattlesnake king" referred to in her third book, Willie and the Rattlesnake King.) There hasn't been a 10-13 year old in my house for many years, but I'm now a faithful reader of Clara's books, and I hope there's another episode of Hattie's saga coming soon.
EDITED TO ADD: Hattie's adventures continue in Secrets of Greymoor. ( )