When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead

Melanie has been telling me I should read this book for months now. And she was entirely right!

The story takes place in 1979. Miranda lives with her mother in an apartment in New York, directly above her best friend Sal (a boy Sal, not a girl Sal) who lives with his mother. She and Sal are friends, they go to school, they hang out... and then things change. And strange notes start showing up for Miranda. This book is a letter, written by Miranda to the mysterious note-writer, that explains how and why.

I don't want to tell too much about the reason that I think Melanie knew I'd love it, because it's such a great surprise at the end when all the pieces come together. I will say that the author mentions on the cover that she was inspired by Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time", and it shows! Like "A Wrinkle in Time", it's a little bit science fiction, but you hardly notice. There are plenty of other good elements to discuss here, though.

One of the bigger elements running through this book is the exploration of friendships and how they can/should/don't work sometimes. Miranda and Sal had been best friends from the time they were babies. Sal needed a break from Miranda, it turns out, but didn't know how to convey that other than starting to ignore her. This of course hurt her deeply, but it did mean that she started making new friends, and a lot of good came of that. And she and Sal eventually make it up. Sometimes a best friend keeps you from having other good friends - Miranda and Sal are not the only ones in the book who discover this.
Another element is that of regret. It's not as obvious a topic for a kid's book, but I really loved how it was handled here. Great opportunity for discussion - are there things that happened a long time ago that you still feel bad about? Would you do anything differently if you could go back? Did you ever do something, that turned out to have effects you didn't predict? Could you have predicted them?

As I said after reading "The Black Pearl", the essay questions practically write themselves for this book - but this time, I think the questions/discussions would actually be fun. Totally read this - it's pretty quick (not quick enough for the tag, but a day or two will easily do it!) and a great time!

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin

Although this book is pretty thick (nearly 300 pages), it's a very easy and swift read. The font is reasonably large and the book contains many full-page illustrations, and since the story is reasonably simple and easy to read, I'd recommend this for younger readers of chapter books.

Minli is a young girl growing up in a poor rice farming village at the foot of Fruitless Mountain. Everything they possess is hard-earned, but although they will never be rich, they have just barely achieved sufficiency. Minli's father enriches her life with folktales, which inspire her to wonder. But folktales can't always answer her questions, so she often hears "You'll have to ask the Old Man of the Moon".

One day, a man selling goldfish comes through the village. Minli, hoping to improve her family's fortune and bring something beautiful into their home, is the only one in the village to purchase one. Her father is understanding, but her mother despairs at having another mouth to feed from their meager portion of rice. But the goldfish is, indeed special. It speaks to Minli and tells her that it has explored all of the rivers in China, with the exception of the one in her village. In exchange for setting him free, he tells her how to begin a journey to Endless Mountain to find the Old Man of the Moon.

Thus begins Minli's long journey. This tale is in many ways like a Grimm's seeking-one's-fortune tale where kindness and virtue and rewarded, and greed and vice are punished. She meets many interesting companions (including the dragon depicted on the front cover), and throughout Minli's story are dispersed short tales that explain the history of a landscape or village or creature. These tales are (very) loosely based in the Chinese folk tales that Grace Lin read as a girl.

It's an enchanting story for lovers of folk tales of all kinds, not too long, and very accessible.