Blue Girl

Having moved to a new town, Imogene is determined to make things go well for herself in her new town and find friends to help her in her mission, but when she is befriended by a ghost named Adrian and becomes haunted in her dreams, Imogene must turn to friend Maxine and Pelly for help in ridding her nights of dark visions.

Grade 9 Up–This lively novel thoughtfully examines friendships that cross magical boundaries and explores how love can strengthen and save us. On her first day of school in a new town, Imogene meets Maxine, an outcast, and is targeted by a group of popular bullies. The two become friends despite their polar personalities; Imogene is bold and brash where Maxine is mousy and quiet. When Imogene notices a pale boy watching her, she asks about him and learns the story of Ghost–actually Adrian–another outcast who was harassed by cliques, died under mysterious circumstances a few years earlier, and now haunts the school. His only companions are a handful of amoral fairies. He convinces them to show themselves to Imogene, but this draws the soul-sucking anamithim to her, endangering her life and the people she loves. Adrian, Imogene, and Maxine alternate as narrators. Tied together as victims of both the magical world and of everyday tyrants, they are sympathetic characters who speak with sharp, snappy dialogue. As in Nina Kiriki Hoffman's A Stir of Bones (Viking, 2003), the otherworldly threat skillfully mirrors and enhances real-world concerns. This complicated story is made more intricate by the now/then time shifts between chapters. The two popular bullies are stereotypically flat, but the remaining characters are well drawn and delightful. Imogene's brutal choices about where to draw the line between self-protection and becoming like her tormentors are clearly depicted.–Sarah Couri, New York Public Library
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Gr. 8-11. Fifteen-year-old Imogene is new at Redding High School, and she's determined not to repeat the mistakes she made at her old school, especially after she meets Maxine, the good-girl friend she's always wanted--and needed. Then Imogene and Maxine encounter Ghost, the school's resident lost soul, and the girls embark on an adventure that moves back and forth between the dangers of the unforgiving high-school environment and a terrifyingly evil netherworld of fairies, supernatural creatures, and anamithim--soul-eaters who are attracted to Imogene's strong personality and who threaten her safety. De Lint's strong characters and riveting plot lines will work for even the most skeptical reader, and Imogene and Maxine are wonderful examples of strong young women faced with a variety of problems that appear to defy solutions--that is, until the girls realize that the simplest, yet most difficult, answer is within their control: bravery in the face of a friend's danger. Frances Bradburn
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