Replay -- Sharon Creech

Sharon Creech is so up and down.  I wasn't a fan of her last couple -- well, the last couple that I read -- Ruby Holler and heartbeat.  Okay, I just plain hated Ruby Holler.  That one I wouldn't recommend.  Personally, I thought heartbeat was schmaltzy to the point of being a gagfest.  But I'd still recommend it to the right person.

But because I unreservedly love some of her books -- Walk Two Moons, Chasing Redbird, Love That Dog, The Wanderer -- I always give her new ones a try.  Replay represents yet another Sharon Creech upswing.  It was super.

Leonardo is twelve years old, the second of four children.  His older sister is a soccer player, his younger brother is a football player and his adorable lisping youngest brother has the voice of an angel.  Leo wants to be an actor -- he even has a part in the school play (as the Old Crone), but to his family, he is known mostly as "Sardine":

His name is Leonardo, and his friends call him Leo, but his family calls him sardine.  This is because once, several years ago, when the relatives were over, shouting and laughing and shaking their fists, Leo got squashed in a corner and cried, and when they asked him why he was crying, he said, "I'm just a little sardine, squashed in a tin."

His siblings -- and even some of his teachers -- also call him "Fog Boy" because of his tendency to daydream.

The book isn't written in traditional chapters.  If there wasn't an emphasis on drama, I'd have said it was a series of vignettes, but because of the school play, I'll call them scenes.  There are quite a few pages where the text switches over to script format.  Leo jumps in and out of daydreams without warning.  There are story parallels right and left -- it's very, very well-crafted.

It's largely about family and the importance of stories.  And it's about about Leo trying to understand the changes in his father, trying to find his place in his own family and in the world, and about forgiveness and understanding.  It's a somewhat quiet, introspective book, so recommending it might not be too, too easy.  But certain kids will appreciate it, both the depth of the story and the complex simplicity of the telling.