Goodbye Stranger

[psocoptera]

Goodbye Stranger, Rebecca Stead, 2015. I may have mentioned before that I consider Stead's When You Reach Me one of the very best middlegrade books of the 00s - like, When You Reach Me, True Meaning of Smekday, and Coraline, that's my 00 medalists, although I couldn't tell you in what order. Goodbye Stranger is a little less complicated than WYRM (there's no [rot13 spoiler] fsany ryrzrag), just a gorgeous work of middlegrade realistic fiction. Her character work is so unbelievably good, striking exactly the right path between affectedly quirky and blandly unoriginal, and while it's not exactly news to me that friendship stories hit me right in the feelings, I *once again* inevitably got to the emotional parts and got teary-eyed in the parent seats at karate. Highly recommended if you like non-sf middlegrade; I'm hoping I can get the 10yo to read this one, although honestly I've been promoting WYRM to her for awhile with no luck.