The Muffin Child

This sad and eerie first novel has a dream-like quality that will quietly sweep readers to another place and era. Set in the Balkan countryside in the year 1913, the tale begins on the night of a terrible storm, when 11-year-old Tanya's parents are washed away by a flooded river. Eyeing her parents' lucrative farm, villagers are quick to step in, and Pavel and his wife, Anna, even offer to adopt Tanya. Tanya, refusing to believe that her mother and father are really dead, prefers to stay on the farm with her cow, Milenka. Anticipating her parents' homecoming, Tanya makes a batch of muffins every day. Soon she becomes known as ""the muffin child,"" a girl ""not like other children, but solitary, gifted, and dangerous."" Neither the coziness of her mother's kitchen nor the memory of her father's sage advice can protect Tanya from outside forces. Pavel tries to claim her land, women invade her kitchen and Gypsies set up camp in her meadow. Menick shows uncanny insight and unusual literary skill. Besides evoking Tanya's fear, denial, suspicions and loneliness, he reveals the complexity of each of his minor characters. Hearts will go out to Tanya as she desperately clings to hope and struggles to protect what is rightfully hers. Ages 10-14. (Sept.)