cover image Dream Sister

Dream Sister

Alexander Whitaker. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), $12.95 (156pp) ISBN 978-0-395-39377-2

Although a year ahead of herself in school, 10-year-old Ann feels like a failure. Knowing that all famous people started young, she begins grandiose projects, but they all end up in ""THE PILE'' at the bottom of her closet. To make matters worse, she can't refrain from tormenting her overwhelmingly cute five-year-old sister Isabelle. Ann has recurring dreams of a little girl calling out to her, which she welcomes after a gypsy tells her they could be a message from the spirit world. But Ann discovers that the girl in the dream is Isabelle, and the message is to accept herself and Isabelle as the children that they are; there's time enough to be an adult later. This imaginative yet sensible first novel should appeal to preteens beset by siblings and by the pressures of impending adulthood. (1014)