Chasing Normal Book

Mieka Baker just wants to be normal. It’s tough enough that her mom left a few years ago and that her artist dad decorates the house solely with “treasures” from the “vintage” store (read: all their furniture is made out of plastic) but it’s just too much when Mieka and her dad have to leave Boston to go to spend the summer with her sick grandmother in Texas—someone Mieka has never met. Grandma Baker isn’t just brutally honest, she’s brutal. She tells Mieka she’s fat, frumpy, and basically unwanted. It’s all too much to handle, especially when she has to stay with her Aunt Kate’s family. The most normal family ever. Aunt Kate stays at home with the kids (where IS Mieka’s mom anyway?), Uncle Dave wears a suit to work, cousin Mark is a genius and Greta—well, she’s Mieka’s age but that’s where the similarity ends. She’s blond, beautiful, fit, friendly, popular and practically perfect.

But as the summer progresses and Mieka learns a thing or two about herself (hey, she can actually learn to enjoy herself at camp, even if it is Bible camp and she happens to be a bit chubbier than every other camper there) and her family members she realizes that there’s no such thing as normal. That even though she and her dad aren’t a conventional family and aren’t rich and don’t go to church they are incredibly lucky to have each other and to have love. And even the perfect kids seem to be chasing normal too.

School Library Journal

Gr 6-8- Mieka's summer takes an unpredictable turn when she and her artist father suddenly leave Boston for Houston to see sickly and surly Grandma Baker in the hospital. They stay with her Aunt Kate's annoyingly perfect family, leading Mieka to feel inadequate about her thrift-store clothes and less-than-ideal face and form. Even her dad's sketchy income and her mother's absence become points of embarrassment, causing Mieka to feel as if chasing normal is as close as she is ever going to get to it. However, the more time she spends with her cousin and the other kids at their summer Bible camp, the better she feels about the artistic talent that sets her apart and gives her self-esteem a boost. As the family deals with the poor health and detestable behavior of a mean-as-a-snake grandmother, Mieka sees that even Aunt Kate and her crew, who appear to have all the advantages, have their own difficulties. Mieka learns that she hasn't been singled out to struggle, that most people have to face challenges, and that these struggles can actually season and enhance lives. While the characters are drawn to life, the plot is reasonably executed, and the writing is perfectly adequate, the moral is perhaps a little heavy-handed and the story is not terribly compelling. Nonetheless, some schools and communities may be drawn to a narrative with a strong Christian component as embodied in the form of the Bible camp experiences.-Suzanne Gordon, Peachtree Ridge High School, Suwanee, GA

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