One of my favourite reads this year! Kate Di Camillo's playful and deft narrative is so full of humour and heart that it's almost impossible to read without smiling. For Ferris, in the summer before fifth grade, family life has become chaotic. Her wild little sister Pinky, is determined to become an outlaw, her Uncle Ted, estranged from Auntie Shirley, is camped out in the basement on a mission to paint a history of the world, her beloved grandmother, Charisse, is unwell and has started seeing a ghost and there may be an infestation of raccoons in the attic! This is a book about the love and tensions that run through family life, the magic of friendship and the beauty to be found in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. In touching so lightly on themes of sibling rivalry, relationship breakdowns, fear of loss and mortality, Ferris conjures the big picture, where these things are a manageable and sometimes hilarious part of love and life. With sparkling and spikey dialogue, its a wondeful read aloud.