Author: Candice Ransom
Publisher: Disney
Rating: WORTHY!
Rebel McKenzie is a kick-ass female character. Candice Ransom is a writer who gets that a strong female character doesn't have to be muscular and kick everyone's ass to be strong. She just has to be 'not weak', even if 'not weak' is defined as someone who is strong enough to overcome whatever weaknesses she has. It's that simple. So why is it that more authors simply don't get it?
Rebel is a twelve-year-old who wants to be a paleontologist specializing in extinct mammalian mega-fauna. Candice Ransom puts a girl with science - the first strong move, and one that's neglected far too often in middle-grade literature, and almost exclusively in YA lit. Unfortunately, her parents aren't well-off, and they can't afford to send her to paleontology camp - which is why this novel begins with an angry and frustrated Rebel living up to her name and running away from home! First page - conflict. Candice Ransom gets it right.
Rebel runs into the local jail clean-up crew - and one old lag advises her to turn around and go home. Again - a character acting out of stereotypical character territory. Candice Ransom gets it. There are no clichéd tropes here, which is how Rebel ends up making a bet with the lag and paying-up when she loses!
More conflict: for her crime of running-away, Rebel is 'sentenced' to spend the summer babysitting Rudy, her much older sister's young child, while her sister attends beauty college. Her sister lives in a trailer park which she insists is actually a mobile home community. She rents the trailer and part of the rental agreement insists that she take care of the significantly overweight cat known as Doublewide, who lives there, and who uses the toilet and rings the doorbell. Again: different. It's hardly surprising that I was captivated by the first page and held captive by every page that followed.
The writing is brilliant. The activities and events normal and realistic, but fascinating and highly entertaining. Amusement lies in wait in every paragraph. When Rebel finds Lacy (the girl-next-door, who is Rebel's own age), bullying young Rudy, there isn't a cat-fight, but a brief conflict, followed by a discussion, followed by a budding friendship, followed by a plan!
It's through Lacy that Rebel meets the antagonist - a prissy professional beauty queen named Bambi, and the battle liens are drawn! Bambi is the same age as the other two and so full of herself that she cannot accommodate anyone else. Once she antagonizes Rebel, and Rebel discovers she can get $250 and fund her week at the paleontology dig herself, she's all on-board to enter a beauty contest, and therein lies a tale.
I adored this novel and I highly recommend it. It's an easy and fast read, and every page has something to engross the reader.
