978-0823453627
Twelve-year-old Mouse calls an amusement park home.
Nobody notices her, and that's the way she likes it. Mouse sweeps the streets and wears a uniform she “borrowed” and sleeps on the top floor of the Haunted House of Horrors. She knows which security guards to avoid, eats the bagel left out each morning for the Ghost of Summer (a popular theme park legend), and even has the taco guy convinced that her lunch is paid for. She has her special hiding methods down to a science.
But one morning, a girl named Cat comes looking for Lauren Suszek. Cat notices her, and Mouse doesn’t like it. Mouse cannot let this nosy pest find out who she really is! If Mouse gets discovered living in the park, Mama might come back for her, and Mouse doesn’t want that. Or—even worse?—Mama might not come back at all.
Mouse knows she can lose this girl without blowing her cover. She just has to follow her rules. A carefully constructed life in the park is all she needs. Right?
Adults may need to have a little suspension of disbelief, but we are not the target audience. The premise of living in an amusement park is sure to intrigue kids of any age, and Jortner gives plenty of details to make the ruse plausible. Mouse sometimes seems a bit younger than her purported age, which could be attributed to her background. That does make it harder to believe that she has passed for a 16-year-old for months, though.
Mouse's character becomes vivid quickly, and I started seeing her mannerisms and hearing her voice early on. Jortner does a great job of showing, not telling. The action and tension climb quickly, and even while I could predict what was going to happen, I teared up at the climactic scene (which actually happens after the action has slowed.) A strong debut firmly in the middle grade category. Trigger warnings of death, parental abandonment/alienation, and panic attacks.
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