Amelia Gray Is Almost Okay

As 12-year-old Amelia Gray, who reads as white, finishes up sixth grade at her 39th school, she’s ready for yet another four-week stay in a new place with her single father, who travels the country revamping hotels. Happy with their unattached “life on the go” and their “supermutt” Biscotti, she is stunned when her father announces that they’ll stay in their next destination—Summerville, N.Y.—for an entire summer. He also challenges her to join an activity for the duration, and promises that if she sticks with it, he’ll secure the thing she wants most: a dog DNA test for Biscotti. Flummoxed by the realization that she lacks a “Thing” of her own, Amelia reinvents herself as three separate people, each with a different name, to find out which persona suits her best. As Amie the “track superstar,” Mellie the journalist, and Lia the performer, she makes friends—and enemies—and digs herself into a deepening pit of small-town drama as she tries to keep her identities separate and her father seems to put down roots. Aptly literalizing the perennial theme of reinventing oneself, this light comedy of errors from Brody (I Speak Boy) features laugh-aloud shenanigans and tender insights. Ages 10–up. Agent: Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Mar.)