Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O'roark Dowell 211 pages

When Janie was nine she persuaded her parents to move to a small farm. She is now 14 and rues that choice. She feels like a social outcast at school and is frequently reminded that she smells like home -- perhaps because she sometimes wear shoes that she wore while doing farm chores. In an attempt to rejoin the real world, she joins a jam band. This is a refreshing ya novel in that it doesn't feel jammed with modern problems (drugs, sex, etc.). Sure she has problems, but they are ones that young readers can relate to, mainly trying to find oneself during tricky adolescent years. Sweet reading.