My diary from the edge of the world / Jodi Lynn Anderson.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Told in diary form by an irresistible heroine, this playful and perceptive novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the May Bird trilogy sparkles with science, myth, magic, and the strange beauty of the everyday marvels we sometimes forget to notice.

Spirited, restless Gracie Lockwood has lived in Cliffden, Maine, her whole life. She's a typical girl in an atypical world: one where sasquatches helped to win the Civil War, where dragons glide over Route 1 on their way south for the winter (sometimes burning down a T.J. Maxx or an Applebee's along the way), where giants hide in caves near LA and mermaids hunt along the beaches, and where Dark Clouds come for people when they die.

To Gracie it's all pretty ho-hum...until a Cloud comes looking for her little brother Sam, turning her small-town life upside down. Determined to protect Sam against all odds, her parents pack the family into a used Winnebago and set out on an epic search for a safe place that most people say doesn't exist: The Extraordinary World. It's rumored to lie at the ends of the earth, and no one has ever made it there and lived to tell the tale. To reach it, the Lockwoods will have to learn to believe in each other--and to trust that the world holds more possibilities than they've ever imagined.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

My Diary from the Edge of the World September 7th I'm on top of the hill, looking down on the town of Cliffden, Maine. It's an early fall day, and so far no one's noticed that I'm where I'm not supposed to be. It's one of those days where the clouds and the sun chase each other. A pretty breeze plays with my hair as I sit here with my back against the crumbled stone pillar that makes my seat. I can almost imagine I'm Joan of Arc surveying the siege of Orleans. It's been almost two months since I got this journal (for my twelfth birthday--from Mom), but I haven't felt the urge to write until now. I've seen two bad omens since breakfast: a crow sitting on the fence at the edge of our yard, and a deathwatch beetle on my windowsill. These are both signs that someone is going to die, so I thought I'd better write them down in case someone does die and no one believes me later. I want to be able to prove that I knew it first. Though now that I'm here nestled in my favorite spot, I have to admit it's hard on such a perfect day to imagine anyone ever dying. Mom says that to tell a story you have to set the scene, so I'll try that here, even though this isn't really a story but just a diary. From here the town is drenched in light and shadows. To my right is Route 1 with all the fast food places: McDonald's, Taco Bell, Wendy's. To my left is downtown, a cluster of old colonial brick buildings. I can see the green cast-iron steeple of Upper Maine Academy, which I attend, and the fairgrounds beyond. The valley is bustling: People are scurrying along the crisscrossing streets, rushing to finish their errands and get back indoors. It's not exactly safe to be out: The dragons are on their way south again, from the northern reaches of Wales and Scotland and Ireland, to hibernate in South America. It's the time when everyone takes cover in their houses, and when we mostly use the tunnels under downtown to get from shop to shop. The dragons have been especially destructive this year. People are blaming it on the weather: It's been colder than usual, so the migrations started early. (Dragons hate the cold I guess, and I do too. I wish I had wings to fly to South America every year.) Last week one burned down the T.J.Maxx in Valley Forge (all those bargains literally up in flames). I'm not allowed to sit out here during dragon season, but today it's too hard to resist. My mom would say I'm just "looking for trouble," which I do manage to find surprisingly often. Sam's scooter is still sitting neglected in the garage from when I crashed it into a boulder over Christmas. Last year I had to get stitches after falling off the lunch table while I was trying to get my classmates to throw Cheerios into my mouth. I've broken my collarbone--which is supposed to be the hardest bone in your body to break--twice. Dad calls me the Tasmanian she-devil. Millie calls me Mrs. Bungles, but I never listen to what Millie says. At least I'm not like the guy who was featured last week in the Cliffden Dispatch, who was found putting hundreds of dollars worth of 7-Layer Burritos from Taco Bell in his front yard so that the dragons would come and eat them. The sky is a cool crystal blue except for one very distant Dark Cloud. It's the same cloud my dad was looking at through his telescope first thing when I woke up this morning. He's a meteorologist for a local TV station. "I don't like the looks of it," he said when he came down to breakfast, his forehead all wrinkled. That's about as much conversation as you'll ever get out of my dad unless he's going on and on about scientific theories of some sort. Millie says he's "not the communicative type" and a "misunderstood genius," but I know that he embarrasses her just as much as he does me. I have to admit though, I agree with him about not liking the looks of the Cloud. He and I have both decided that it looks a bit like a misty galaxy with a black hole in the middle (the kind of black hole from Dad's amateur astronomy lessons that swallows up everything in its path). Dark Clouds come for people when they die. Usually the person is sick beforehand, and most of the people Clouds come for are old, but sometimes Clouds arrive with no warning at all. They wait outside people's houses until it's time, then they scoop up their souls and carry them away. Just last week, a Cloud floated up our block and collected Mrs. Elton, who was ninety-six. Millie thinks this particular Dark Cloud looks like the face of an evil circus clown--but I think that's just because she's never gotten over her fear of the circus from when she was little (she fell in a pile of elephant poo and it scarred her for life). Dark Clouds are like regular clouds in that everyone who looks at them sees something different. I wonder what Mrs. Elton's Cloud looked like to her. Millie and I discussed it. "Maybe it looked like an old friend. At ninety-six," I suggested, "you're probably only half-alive anyway, so you don't mind dying as much." Millie's long, perfect eyelashes fluttered in annoyance. "You're an emotional mutant," she said, then wiped away a tear, which I can only suppose she squeezed out in order to be dramatic about Mrs. Elton. Though secretly I do feel guilty now about saying Mrs. Elton probably wouldn't mind death. I guess Millie's right that no one is going to be happy to see that kind of thing arrive on their doorstep, even if they're ancient. *  *  * The truth is that, other than the occasional Dark Cloud, nothing terrible or exciting ever happens in Cliffden. Only baseball games and lying on the grass and chasing the ice-cream man in the summer, building igloos in the winter, sometimes collecting earthworms in the puddles after rain or hunting for dragon scales in the fall (Mom puts them in a big glass jar on the coffee table because, she says, "They add a splash of color,") and trick or treating. (Last year a real ghoul escaped from the Underworld and ran around scaring children and stealing candy on Halloween night, which was pretty exciting. But none of the kids from my neighborhood got to see him, and he was quickly caught and escorted back underground by the local police.) There are science lectures about botany, zoology, the aurora borealis, and all sorts of other discoveries in a lecture hall in the caverns downtown. There's the occasional parade or party at the firehouse (to thank the firemen for all their work with the dragon fires) or outdoor movies in the spring, and there's the carnizaar (part carnival, part bazaar) at the fairgrounds for Cliffden Day. But that's about it. *  *  * I just opened to the inscription Mom made on the inside cover of this book. It says, To Gracie, May this diary be big enough to contain your restless heart. She says I fling my loud personality at everyone and that one day it will poke somebody's eye out. I don't completely understand her--she's a little obscure and poetic. She used to be a professional violinist. She said she gave me this diary because I need something to pour my loudness into. She says it's better to sit and write my feelings than to spend all day dreaming up ways to irritate Millie. So far I've only filled six pages, and I've been here thinking for over an hour. I'm actually supposed to be doing my reading for school, but Sasquatches, Sailors, and Uncle Sam: An American History is, so far, unbearably boring. So I've just been sitting here chewing my pen and trying to figure out how to write what's around me, but it's hard to capture. The sun is sinking and it's getting chilly out. The air smells like fall--that exciting dry smell that reminds you of all the falls of your life. Behind me our big ambling Victorian is winking at me. I've always thought of our house as a lady's face, with the two highest windows as the eyes--and one of the eyes closed because the curtain's always drawn in that room. My little brother, Sam--whom we call the Mouse because he's small for his age, and quiet, especially because he always has a cold--is silhouetted in one of the parlor windows practicing the flute (Mom made us each learn an instrument; we're all disasters). Millie is probably watching Extreme Witches at top volume as usual, where they put six witches together in a big house and film them arguing with each other. Mom tries to get her to watch more informative stuff, like this segment CNN does once a week on the gods called The Immortals, Where Are They Now? Each week they feature a different god: Last week it was Zeus, sitting on a lawn chair up on top of Mount Olympus, where only authorized camera crews are allowed to go. But Millie couldn't care less. With two siblings it's the quiet that you want, trust me. Especially when you're not the oldest or the youngest or the beautiful, graceful one but just the one that happened to fall in the middle. I'll tell you in one sentence what it's like to be the middle child, in case you don't know: Everyone on either side of you squeezes you until you almost explode, and all the time that they're smushing you they're not really noticing you're there. So you have to find a place that's just yours, and that's how I found this old church stone at the corner of our yard. Ugh. Mouse just called out the window to say Mom's looking for me and that it's time to take a shower. I hate bathing in general. When I was little, Mom used to threaten me into the bath by saying dirty children get sent to the Crow's Nest, where my grandma lives (speaking of witches), deep in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. Supposedly, in the seventies, Grandma caused three people to disappear forever just by cursing hairs she got from their hairbrushes. She-- Oops, Mom just spotted me--she's hanging out her bedroom window yelling. Her hair is all wet from the shower and flopping down the sides of her face like curtains. How's that for descriptive? Excerpted from My Diary from the Edge of the World by Jodi Lynn Anderson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Living in Camden, Maine, 12-year-old Gracie Lockwood is used to dragons, giants, and vampires. Even her grandmother, a witch living in the Smokey Mountains, keeps ghosts in her backyard. When a Dark Cloud, a harbinger of death, arrives at the family's doorstep, Gracie, her siblings, their parents, and her orphaned friend Oliver escape their beloved town in a Winnebago. They embark on a journey across the country in search of the Extraordinary World, a place without supernatural beings, believed to be a myth by everyone except Gracie's absent-minded father. Anderson (Tiger Lily) infuses the novel, written in the form of Gracie's diary, with effervescent magic and harrowing adventure, and every enticing cliffhanger makes it difficult to put down. Gracie and family weather a soul-stealing genie, phantom ships, and a weak-kneed guardian angel named Virgil in their escape from death, only to discover the necessity in accepting one's fate and the importance of family. Anderson leaves no stone unturned as she creates characters with zest and heart, as well as settings that encompass the best of all imaginary lands. Ages 8-12. Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

School Library Journal Review

Gr 4-7-Gracie Lockwood is a spirited girl and journal writer, who lives with her parents, brother, and sister right down the street from a T.J.Maxx that was recently burned down by dragons. Her world mirrors ours, in that there is a Wendy's, Taco Bell, and McDonald's off of Route 1. It differs, however, because Sasquatches roam the forests, depressed ghosts linger, and for a pretty penny, one can hire a guardian angel should one require protection. Perhaps the most ominous thing about her world is the fact that dark clouds visit the homes of anyone whose life they're about to take. When such a cloud appears over Gracie's home, the family believes it has come for her ailing younger brother, Sam. Their one chance at outrunning his death is crossing over into the Extraordinary World. Her father, a somewhat unreliable scientist believes that a parallel universe exists, one in which humans thrive without the death clouds and other dangers found in their own world. When the Lockwoods purchase a Winnebago to flee their town in pursuit of the Extraordinary World, readers are taken on a fun-filled, well-paced, modern adventure. VERDICT Fans of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" will enjoy this heartfelt, bittersweet, and ever-so-clever coming-of-age fantasy. It is a must-add to any middle grade collection.-Pilar Okeson, Allen-Stevenson School, New York City © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Within the pages of Gracie Lockwood's diary is an extraordinary adventure: her family embarking to save her sickly little brother, Sam. Gracie's world is strikingly similar to our own, except it is inhabited by dragons, poltergeists, sasquatch, and mermaids. When a Dark Cloud, a bringer of death, settles in the Lockwoods' backyard, the family decides to try to outrun it before it can take Sam. They pack up a Winnebago and, joined by Gracie's friend, set out across the country with plans to escape into the Extraordinary World. Gracie's thoughtful, fresh-eyed perspective is the perfect lens through which to view Anderson's alternate Earth, which tweaks history and familiar landscapes to accommodate its supernatural residents. Mentions of string theory and parallel universes serve as fleeting explanations for the existence of other worlds and endless possibility, yet the crux of the story lies in the closeness of the Lockwood family, which is challenged and strained along the journey and proves to be the most magical element of all. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This author of the May Bird trilogy and Tiger Lily is best-selling and critically acclaimed, so have extra copies on hand.--Smith, Julia Copyright 2015 Booklist

Horn Book Review

High-spirited twelve-year-old Gracie Lockwoods world is almost like oursexcept that the planet is flat, dragons exist (and migrate), and poltergeists stopped the Industrial Revolution from getting very far. When the arrival of an ominous Dark Cloud seems to portend her younger brother Sams death, there is only one way for the family to escape fate: by leaving for the fabled Extraordinary World from which no one has ever returned. The Lockwoodsalong with Gracies classmate Oliver, new in town after being orphaned in a sasquatch attackset out on a cross-country Winnebago trip in search of a guardian angel and a ship that will take them off the edge of their world to, it is implied, our own. Gracies family is both aggravating and endearing, full of sibling rivalry and sibling loyalty, with one almost-perfect parent and another who is given to frequent bouts of silent stupor. Anderson wisely allows the intricate details of Gracies world to emerge gradually through her protagonists sharp, sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant diary entries. Although readers may be left with questions (how does gravity work on a flat planet? Why are McDonalds and TJ Maxx so prevalent in a semi-industrialized world?), Gracie herself is concerned with far more important questions of honesty and survival. Subtle nods to contemporary issues, notably climate change, shape the books themes without detracting from the fast-moving plot. sarah rettger(c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

In her diary, Gracie Lockwood records her family's flight for the fabled Extraordinary World, where magic doesn't exist. Twelve-year-old Gracie lives in Cliffden, Maine, with her eccentric, meteorologist father; hippie-manqu, musician mother; irritating older sister, Millie; and sweet, sickly little brother, Sam. In hopes of escaping the Dark Cloud that has clearly come to take Sam, the family piles into a Winnebago to head south and then west, chasing the hope that the Extraordinary World both exists and will be a safe haven. Along the way they pick up Oliver, orphaned in a sasquatch attack, and then a sasquatch, a trio of pegasuses, and a guardian angel named Virgil. Gracie's sparkling narrative voice is funny, smart, and convincingly ingenuous. Anderson builds a magic-filled world where the Industrial Revolution "got sort of cut in half," dragons migrate annually from Britain to South America, and 7-Elevens line the highways till the wilderness takes over. Though Anderson acknowledges the indigenous peoples of North America and those brought over as slaves, her story is firmly grounded in an alternative, modern United States populated by the descendants of Europeans. Gracie and her family are tested sorely, and readers will be rooting for them to the last page. An endearing narrator, a beguiling world that accommodates both mermaids and Pixy Stix, and a genuinely moving family story propel this adventure for readers who don't look too hard at the details. (Fantasy. 9-13) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Jodi Lynn Anderson is the bestselling author of several critically acclaimed books for young people, including the May Bird trilogy, the Thirteen Witches series, and My Diary from the Edge of the World . She lives with her husband, son, and daughter in Asheville, North Carolina, and holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College.