I really enjoy this book a lot and loved how it ended. We had to read this book for our literature circle and it was hard to not read beyond the chapters we assigned. It is great book and goes back and forth between the past and present. The adventure that she went through was very understandable for a young girl who had to face the reality of losing her mom. It's wonderful book and I would use this book for literature circle with middle school kids and have them create poetry for one character if they had to tell the class what the story is about by describing the characters.