It’s early spring and the peepers are singing happily, but Cyndarria Rose Thornwell is stuck at her desk, faced with writing an essay on the world’s most boring topic: What do you want to be when you grow up? Ugh! After leaving the essay on her desk to finish later, she returns to find it has mysteriously disappeared and is nowhere to be found. This begins a series of surprises for Cyndarria, some of which are much scarier than the loss of her essay: an arsonist sets fire to her school and Cyndarria becomes involved in an unexpected and frightening way. At her first track meet, she unwittingly gains the unwanted attention of a mysterious stranger, and her grandfather Paddy, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, disappears one night in the freezing rain. Amid all the scary surprises, however, there are some which are happy, exciting, and ultimately rewarding. Along the way, Cyndarria is loved and supported by her family-father Toad, mother Belle, and younger siblings J.J. and Toby-and friends, especially her best friend Henri, whose parents are both Haitian refugees. This delightful book for young-adult readers offers much more than the story of an unforgettable spring. It includes Cyndarria Rose Thornwell’s Mini-dictonary for the Conscientious, the Curious, and the Lover of Words , which has 163 words and terms with which readers might not be familiar, and a section of Things to Think About , which encourages readers to think further about some of the big ideas touched on by the novel that are particularly meaningful to the young reader such bullying, racism, making a difference, dealing with loss, attitude and effort, making choices, and being an American, plus eight others. It also includes Grandma Rose’s yummy recipe for oatmeal-peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies and, for teachers who purchase multiple copies of the book for use in their classroom, an offer of free supplementary materials. These include vocabulary practice exercises based on the Mini-dictionary; vocabulary quizzes; chapter questions, both short-answer and discussion; chapter quizzes, based on clusters of chapters; a test over the entire book, including objective and essay questions; and, finally, suggestions for projects based on the book.
