A Crooked Kind of Perfect

A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban

Zoe Elias is a ten-year-old girl with dreams of playing the piano. When her dad ventures to the  music store and ends up buying a wheezy organ instead of a piano, Zoe's dreams hit a sour note.  Learning the old TV songs on the organ isn't the same as mastering Beethoven on the piano, and the organ isn't the only part of Zoe's life in Michigan that's off-kilter, Zoe's mom is a workaholic, her dad, an agoraphobic, and she's got Wheeler Diggs, the school bully, following her home from school every day.  Zoe finds life is full of surprises when she enters the annual Perform-O-Rama organ competition, and that perfection may be even better when it's just a little off center.

This book is funny, sad, suspenseful and definitely quirky.  Zoe has problems, a mom who is always working, a dad who is afraid to leave the house, a best friend that doesn't want to be friends any more, and the school bully is hanging around her house baking cookies with her dad. I thought that when her dad came home with the wheezy organ it seemed like it was an accordion, but the book never called it that. Anyway, Zoe tries to make the best of her reality.

This is a story about vulnerability, complexity of family, resilience, and the power of  having people in your corner.  A great book for upper elementary and middle school kids.  I absolutely loved it!  You can find this book in the intermediate section of the library.