ELLIE EVER

Nine-year-old Ellie and her mother live in a shelter following the loss of Ellie's farrier father, their home, the family dog and all their possessions in a hurricane. Ellie's mother is offered a job taking care of rescued horses on a Virginia estate, and Ellie gets a scholarship to an exclusive private school. In her first days there, the other students begin to believe that Ellie is a royal princess living in the estate's mansion. At first Ellie does nothing to disabuse the rumor and even cultivates princess-like habits, as the misapprehension has done wonders to get her past new-girl outsider status. Eventually her hand is forced, and she has to find the courage to tell them the truth about her past—but that past feels false, along with much of the story and the too-good-to-be-true Ellie. As she and her mother face their first Christmas after the hurricane, Ellie's narration conveys the feeling that her mother's making fried chicken compensates for her father's death, and nothing about the princess story feels credible. A decent start poorly realized. (Fiction. 7-10)