"far far away" by Tom McNeal

With a lot of chat in professional library circles, this TAB title reminded me of recent reads "Splendor and Glooms" and "A Tangle of Knots."  It isn't a little kids book but there is an innocence to the characters and a level of class and gently literary writing that elevates it beyond much of the current YA fare.  Clever, soft, funny and touching, it is the story of "a girl, a boy and a ghost" in a semi-mythical 1970s era Texas town, called "Never Better."  Much of the tone of the tale comes from the ghost, an omnipresent narrator who draws heavily on the stories and lives of the Brothers Grimm.  It is a great book with eponymously named characters, laughs, a dash of romance, serious undertones, a mystery or two and a villain that you either do or don't see coming (yeah, I did, but it didn't ruin the novel one bit for me).  It was something I looked forward to reading -- a smart page-turner with a very satisfying ending that left me grabbing for a tissue and feeling slightly verklempt.  It's got darkness ... this is, after all, in the style of Grimm ... but there is  beauty, too.  In all, utterly satisfying.  If I can get kids past the "blah" cover, I suspect we will have a winner.