My daughter, the reader

As part of my mission to share books that my daughter likes in order to throw a life-preserver to other parents of highly reluctant readers, I'd like to announce that in one weekend, she read an entire 27-chapter mystery book -- a feat that included reading 12 chapters on Saturday and 11 on Sunday. The book was The Light on Hogback Hill by Cynthia DeFelice. It ain't exactly Agatha Christie, and it ain't exactly PC -- one character is a single mom so caught up in her anger and bitterness that she throws herself into work and leaves her 11-year-old daughter home alone for days, and another is the brother of a disabled woman who hides her away in a hilltop cabin rather than deal with her disability -- but man, you give me something that my daughter will agree to read, much less read in a rush, and I'll forgive a lot. If you're seeking something that will look like a proper book for a middle-schooler but be accessible to kids with much lower reading levels, you might want to give this one a try. My personal reading-hater gives it a thumbs up.