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Jennifer Torres's Flor and Miranda Steal the Show is a sunny, big-hearted story for 9 year olds about two girls at a travelling carnival who really ought to be enemies.
The petting zoo belongs to Flor's family. There are goats, chickens, rabbits and a sheep, plus Betabel, a grumpy pig who's strictly backstage only. Miranda is the small girl with the enormous voice who sings with her brother and sister as Miranda y los Reyes. When she sings, somebody always gets up and dances.
One lunchtime Flor overhears Miranda's dad asking the carnival boss for more money. The boss says he can't pay more without cutting someone else. And Mr Reyes suggests the petting zoo!
So Flor makes a plan. A rival carnival has a skateboarding pug, and people queue for an hour to see him. Why not a skateboarding pig? Betabel isn't keen, but kettle corn helps. Pig versus pop star.
Miranda has worries of her own. Her family has gambled everything on this summer. She's eleven, she's still learning Spanish from a tape, and she sings songs she only half understands. She's rewritten one of them in her own words, and her dad won't let her sing it.
The chapters swap between the two girls, each one stamped with the time, so you often see the same moment from both sides. Flor storms out of the show in the middle of a song. Then you're with Miranda afterwards, wondering what she did wrong. It's clever and it's very satisfying (you know more than either of them do).
The carnival itself is so much fun to be in. There's frozen lemonade from a stand shaped like a giant lemon, a dodgy batch of deep-fried pickles and a roller-skating balloon fairy called Cordelia Cornflower.
There's a bit of sadness underneath. Flor's mum has moved away for a job and wants Flor to come home and start school again. Flor doesn't feel ready to leave the zoo or her dad.
It's a lovely one about family, friendship and deciding whose side you're on. If your reader enjoys stories told by two people who don't quite understand each other yet, they'll probably love it.
If they're after another girl whose family business runs on wheels, Stef Soto, Taco Queen is in the library too. Stef's dad drives a taco truck called Tía Perla, and Stef REALLY wishes he'd stop parking it outside her school.
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