Tricia Springstubb

A sweet story about a girl named Mo who love love loves her neighborhood on Fox Street. Mo and her little sister Dottie lost their mother when they were young, but they have a great community helping their father raise them. Trouble comes when a developer targets Fox Street for destruction and Mo's best friend Mercedes changes in ways Mo doesn't understand (basically, Mercedes' family suddenly has a lot of money). Mo has two important goals: staying on Fox Street and trying to spy an actual fox in the wooded area near her house.

The trouble with this story is that it's slow. It's well-written, the characters are lovable, and the drama is real, but the plot is pretty stagnant. There's a "mystery" regarding a mean old neighbor-lady's sudden interest in Mercerdes, but it's totally transparent, so really not a mystery at all. Mo's attachment to her neighborhood is so fierce it's compelling, but emotion alone doesn't make that great of a story.

… (altro)

A good read, but I'm not certain of the age of the target audience.

A pattern I think I'm starting to see with [a:Springstubb|58029|Tricia Springstubb|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1281601116p2/58029.jpg] is that everyone (and I mean everyone) in her book(s) has a problem or difficulty of some sort. Divorced, abandoned, alcohol, physical abuse, violence, widowed, murderer, stroke, old-age, fat, tall, skinny—they don't seem to be character descriptions, but almost character definitions. Not quite, but close.

The story itself I would recommend to my 10 year-old. But the complicated parentage and off-page sex situations make me wonder if perhaps it is more mature than what I would rather be on her reading list.… (altro)