YA Corner: Something to read during Spring Break

Ah, Spring Break.  I miss it.  I really do.  I no longer go to school, or teach, and therefore I get no scheduled week off.  Sad, I know, but reality for most of us.  Still, some of you (or more likely, some of your children) do get this delightful break from routine.  I remember always having grand illusions about keeping up or catching up on schoolwork, which never actually happened.  Spring break calls for a brain break–you need to read something fluffy and funny, some kind of summer reading preview.  If I were spring breaking this week, I’d be reading Janette Rallison.

I’ve liked Rallison since I read It’s a Mall World After All years ago.  It’s the story of Charlotte, a smart, yet sometimes silly, high schooler on a mission to prove her best friend’s boyfriend is a cheating cad.  Of course, she doesn’t expect to be thrown off the trail by his best friend: a smart, cute, charming young man who tries to distract her by wooing her.  Charlotte is a classic Rallison heroine; she’s hugely likable, prone to getting in over her head, and endlessly capable of crazy, funny, Lucy Ricardo-esque hijinks.

Rallison’s latest release is a follow-up to another of my favorites, My Fair Godmother. This time, the heroine is Savannah, a flighty 16 yr old beauty who loses her hunky boyfriend to studious older sister Jane in the first chapter.  Savannah sets her cap at winning him back and making him jealous, but in true Rallison fashion, things go awry in a funny, humiliating way involving the track team, a swim party and a wardrobe malfunction.

Embarrassed and feeling betrayed, Savannah finds her fair godmother (that’s fair as in her godmother is as lax about fairy godmother training as Savannah is about high school) in her room offering 3 wishes.  The first three wishes don’t go according to plan, but things get even worse when she finds that Chrissy has sent one of the boys on the track team back to the Middle Ages in her attempt to fill Savannah’s final wish.  Tristan must actually become a prince before he can return to his modern life and take Savannah to the prom.  Discovering a loophole in the contract, Savannah demands that Chrissy send her back to help get Tristan out of this mess she’s inadvertently thrown him into.  There’s magic, there’s a touch of romantic tension, and there’s a lot of laughs.

My Unfair Godmother is set for release this week, and Chrissy is back with three wishes for a new teenage beneficiary of her sometimes unpredictable powers.  I can’t wait to read it.  If only I was on Spring Break…