FIREGIRL by Tony Abbott
    Category:  Contemporary
    Age Recommendation:  Grades 6+
    Release Date:  6/6/06
    Publisher:  Little, Brown
    Reviewed by:  Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"
    Rating:  4 Stars


    For Tom Bender, seventh grade isn't all that different from the grades that came before.  He still attends a private
    Catholic school, St. Catherine's.  He's still pretty much best friends with Jeff Hicks.  He still loves the Cobra, a sports
    car that he spends plenty of time dreaming about.  The few things that are different this year?  He has a great teacher,
    Mrs. Tracy.  Jeff's uncle actually owns a Cobra, and Jeff has promised Tom a ride in it.  He's in love with Courtney
    Zisky, a girl he fantasizes about saving from make-believe situations on a daily basis.  Oh, and Jessica Feeney shows
    up in his classroom.

    The day starts out as it regularly does.  Morning prayers, the announcement of a class election, and the impending
    arrival of a new girl in their class.  And then things change more than anyone could have ever imagined, because Mrs.
    Tracy informs her students that Jessica, the new girl, is unlike anyone they've ever met before.  Jessica was burned in
    a fire, a terrible, horrible tragedy, and she looks different than anyone these kids have ever seen.  Tom has only a
    short time to think about what this means before she's there, the Firegirl, hideously disfigured yet somehow still
    wholly alive.

    What follows in the few short weeks that Jessica Feeney is in his class has a life-changing impact on Tom's life.  His
    friend's jokes and elaborate stories they've made up for how Jessica got burned no longer seem funny.  His
    daydreams keep slipping Courtney out and Jessica in.  And during the class election, where Tom wanted to nominate
    Courtney so she'd know how he felt about her, he's unable to say anything at all.  He takes Jessica her homework
    during one of her many school absences, and learns the truth behind how she was burned, and he cries because she's
    just a kid like he himself is.  Even a ride in the Cobra, which Tom has been dreaming about for years, is pushed by
    the wayside.

    FIREGIRL is the story of being different, of change, and of acceptance.  There are no real happily-ever-afters in this
    book.  Jessica isn't miraculously healed, Tom doesn't morph into a superhero or righter of all wrongs, and the
    students in Mrs. Tracy's class don't all learn that you can accept people who are different.  Instead, this is the story of
    individual strength, of the internal struggle to balance what you know is right with what is wrong.  A very inspiring
    story, indeed.
Firegirl
by Tony Abbott