SOMETIMEY FRIEND

It’s 1978 and good-hearted Sylvia Freeman is getting ready for fifth grade at a new school with her newly discovered family. Hart picks up where Secret Holes (2003) ended, in Wakeview, S.C. Here Sylvia says goodbye to her mother for the first time and is left with her “best friend and great-grandmother,” Miz Lula May. Sylvia’s start of school is a bit rocky and becomes even more challenging when she receives a note that makes fun of Miz Lula May. Self-conscious and worried, Sylvia is embarrassed about her great-grandmother’s age, her slightly worn house and her other quirky relatives. Though Sylvia’s first-person narrative is spunky and honest, the dialect is jumpy and inconsistent, sometimes changing mid-sentence. Readers will wonder why Sylvia’s mother is gone so long—even Sylvia wonders, but her question is never answered. The strength of this story is not so much the Southern atmosphere or an evocation of the time, but in the relationship between Sylvia and her family. Those who’ve read the first two installments in Sylvia’s life will want to continue with this one. (Fiction. 8-11)