DINKY HOCKER SHOOTS SMACK! by ME Kerr
Originally 1972, Reissue 2007, HarperCollins


Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! is terrific. It's funny, for sure, but also surprising, volatile, lively -- just like the protagonists, Tucker, Dinky, Natalia and P.John.

"Don't tell people we've moved to Brooklyn... Tell them we've moved to Brooklyn Heights."
"Why? Brooklyn Heights is Brooklyn."
"Believe me, Tucker, you'll make a better impression."
Which was very important to Tucker's father -- making a good impression.

All the adults are obsessed with "making a good impression" and all the kids seem to fit a certain mold. "The Fat Girl", "The Goody-Two-Shoes", "The Book Worm", "The Young Republican" - but as the cover says, "Don't Understand Me Too Quickly." NONE of these characters are what they appear to be, and it is a testement to Kerr's skill as a writer that we care so much about them, and love them much more for their flaws.


JANE-EMILY by Patricia Clapp
Originally 1969, Reissued 2007, Harper

Confession: I memorized this book when I was a kid. I still recite bits of it every time I see girls with dark, ringleted hair, reflecting balls, pansies or Massachusetts. To say that this book made an impression on me is to understate the issue dramatically. So I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw it had been reissued this year.

Jane is a good, quiet, serious girl. An orphan, who has come with her teenage Aunt to the home of her grandmother for the summer. The house is rambling, with a gorgeous garden that has one very unique feature. It's a gazing ball on a pedestal. But when Jane looks into it, the face she sees is not her own, but that of another child, a pretty girl who lived in the house long ago. Emily.

Jane develops a secret friendship with this ghost ... but Emily was spoiled and angry when she was alive, and now that she's dead, she's EVIL. It's up to the teenage Louisa to figure out that her neice's "flights of fancy" are not imagination, they are a supernatural menace with deadly designs on Jane. CHILLING!


Hey, that's it for me for Under the Radar recommendations. But do be sure to check out the work of my colleagues in the kidlitosphere - they are talking about TONS of unknown-to-me books that I can't wait to get my paws on!