I came across this great new book at a Charlotte library after I had locked myself out of a car and was waiting to be rescued. After checking out my crochet pattern books, I found I had stranded myself for a while, so I wandered back in to the lower floor (which happened to be the juvenile department) and headed for the H stacks. I'm a major Margaret Peterson Haddix fan after being introduced to her years ago by a friend who's a Children's Librarian.
Haddix is always a good choice if you're looking for a quick read or a suspense that will be reliably clean and thought-provoking. She brings up realistic problems and conflicts for her characters, whether they are preteens or teens, that young people reading her books could identify with, and sometimes, but not always, adds thrilling supernatural events into their lives!
The major themes of the book are friendship and family dynamics. The plot revolves around an 11-year-old girl who just moved into a new town a few states away, where she discovers a mystery. There are discussions about transitioning from childhood to young adulthood, as well as theories about time travel. The characters are so lifelike and believable that I found the resolutions of the various conflicts to be almost therapeutic. I also appreciated the positive portrayal of a dad. Males typically are not major positive characters and usually are in the background, indifferent to kids, and often stereotypically immoral, even in kids' books (like in One For the Murphys). There are a lot of good men out there who genuinely care about kids and dream of having their own families to be involved in.
There is no doubt in my mind that Haddix writes from an authentic faith in Christ, because she brings ordinary Christian kids into her stories who are like real kids you'd meet at church. Though lots of U. S. American kids of all colors attend church every week, you almost never find church or church figures mentioned in intermediate fiction published in the past few decades, even if it's about a nice family like the Penderwicks. Haddix doesn't need to have a special publisher or to spend chapters preaching at the reader to bring up this topic in her stories. It happens "organically," as they say. Regardless of whether you include a sermon or Bible verse, hope and positivity are valuable to all young readers, and you'll find that here, when you may not be expecting it.