Sure Signs of Crazy

Sarah Nelson has a problem. She is nearly done with sixth grade and is facing the beginning of seventh grade when the big project is a report on her family. All people have family secrets, but Sarah has a whopper. But on the last day of school, her English teacher gives her a gift. He gives composition books to every student and tells them to write letters over the summer, if not to a real person, then to a fictional character. Sarah needs someone to talk to, to help her figure things out, and decides to pour her heart out to Atticus Finch. How can she get past the fact that her mother tried to drown both Sarah and her twin brother? How can she live with the guilt of being the surviving twin? How can she make her father stop drinking and moving every time their names bubble up into the news one more time?

Karen Harrington has written a lovely, complex, very real story of a young girl becoming a woman in so many ways all at once. Told in first person, the voice is pitch perfect, and the story is absolutely compelling.