While searching for Abby, Emma has to come to terms with how their friendship fell apart, and how she misses not only Abby, but the way she used to be with her. They have words, and after that Abby goes missing.

Emma runs into her former best friend Abby on the bus. Although this is a tremendously sad book, it was compelling. I will just list most of them, since we pretty much know the plots! Notable exception: Lee Weatherly's Missing Abby (2004), which I read last night. After the 7th grade reads The Face on the Milk Carton, I always get requests for similar books. There are a few students who enjoy the Stevenson book, but most of them want something a little more modern.

Oh, don't suppose I should forget Kate Brian's Lucky T (2005), about a girl whose mother gives away the title garment, and the girl goes to do volunteer work in India to try to retrieve it. There are a few others I liked about Indian culture: Narinder Dhami's Bindi Babes(2004) and Bollywood Babes (2005), about three sisters in England who get into a series of funny scrapes Blue Jasmine (2004) by Kashmira Sheth, about an Indian girl whose family moves to Iowa and Shiva's Fire, by Suzanne Fisher Staples, about an Indian girl who is learning classical dance. She had to spend the summer with her grandmother in India, and it offered a nice slice of daily life. The second book was realistic fiction, and about a girl whose father was American and whose mother was Indian. It worked, though, and I think that it will be good when fans of 'pink' books need to read fantasy. The first book was about an Indian-Canadian girl whose cousin comes to India, and about halfway through the book, it turned into fantasy, with the statue of the God Ganesh speaking to her and granting her wishes. I was not thinking, and ordered Maya Running (Anjali Banerjee, 2005) thinking it was the sequel to Naming Maya (Uma Krishnaswami, 2004) which I loved.

Usually, I read books before I order them. Odd, assorted alphabetical reading last night- Stephen Manes Make Four Million Dollars by Next Thursday (1991) which was fairly low leverl and silly, and Gloria Miklowitz's Close to the Edge (1983) which was about a girl struggling with her own depression and the suicide of a good friend.

Maya Running by Anjali Banerjee