What Erika Wants by Bruce ClementsFarrar, Strous and Giroux, 2005

This is a well-written and engrossing story of a fourteen-year-old girl whose divorced parents are in the midst of a custody battle. Erika’s been living with her dad, but her pushy mom wants this to change: when the book opens, Erika parrots hollow phrases from her mother, like, “a girl should be home with her mom.” Erika’s dad isn’t exactly a paragon of excellence and stability, either, but he’s clearly doing his best. With gentle guidance from Jean, her court-appointed lawyer, Erika learns to be truer to herself, and to start thinking about what she wants, rather than what everybody else wants. It’s nice that this book has a fairly tight focus, without being dull or preachy: we see bits of Erika’s life (her best friend, play rehearsal, lunch hour at school, home), but there’s no sense that Clements wanted to cram more things into the story than would fit.