Criss Cross

Criss Cross By Lynne Rae Perkins

***** 5/5 stars Historical Fiction

Debbie’ neighborhood is full of people. Each person has his or her own story.  Hector’s life is changing. Debbie wants something interesting to happen.   Lenny used to like to read encyclopedias for fun, but now he’s changed. Dan thinks that he is better than he really is. And Mrs. Bruning is a retired old woman who doesn’t know what to do with her life.  This book shows how the characters’ lives criss and cross and how one character’s actions influence another’s.

The characters in this book remind me a lot of kids in everyday life. The author wrote it in a very casual way so the kids were kids, but there was a bit of seriousness and a touch of melancholy under the surface of the writing.  I also thought that the way the characters’ actions influenced each other was a lot like a theory called the Butterfly Effect. It is a theory that says that a butterfly flapping its wings in China could cause a thunderstorm in the other half of the world. There was something similar to that in the book.
I really liked the book because of the style of the writing and the narrative structure of the story. I do wish, however, that the book had a thicker plot.

This book will appeal to readers who like a fun read, but probably not so much to people who like action books.