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May 15, 2012
A lively preteen develops the "superpsychic" ability to converse with the dead, complicating her seventh-grade life in this lighthearted debut. When 12-year-old Lilah's struck by lightning at her mother's wedding, she wakes up hearing her deceased grandmother Dora talking to her. Lilah's afraid she's going crazy until Dora explains, "[w]hen the lightning hit you, it was like someone switched on a radio and I was tuned into your channel." Soon, Lilah's channeling lots of dead people like Serena, her music teacher's sweetheart; Priscilla, a famous fashion designer; and Marion, the cafeteria lunch lady for 49 years. Overwhelmed with advice and requests from talking ghosts who are simultaneously irritating and invasive, Lilah confesses her psychic power to her best friend, Alex, who thinks she should earn money doing readings. But when Lilah tries to give a message to her crush, Andrew, from his deceased father, things go terribly wrong. Gradually, Lilah learns how to convert her psychic pals into allies and channel her powers positively, turning a disastrous school fundraiser into a success, winning Andrew's trust and admiration, and helping her father find romance. In a fresh, frank and funny first-person voice, Lilah tells of her ghostly encounters from the perspective of a normal Jewish girl coping with abnormal powers. Droll middle school drama. (Fantasy. 8-12)

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October 1, 2012

Gr 6-8-As if seventh grade weren't hard enough, 12-year-old Lilah suddenly finds herself able to communicate with the dead when she is struck by lightning at her mother's wedding reception. Accompanied by the ghost of her grandmother and a slew of other mismatched spirits, Lilah navigates the craziness of middle school, helping a number of people, both living and dead, along the way. Her real success, though, lies in what she discovers about herself as she overcomes her shyness at talking to her crush. Levy has created a fun, witty account of middle-school life while effectively capturing its preteen angst. Lilah is a refreshingly strong character who embraces her own individuality while sticking up for herself and others. Though some of the book's elements are predictable and many of the conflicts are resolved too neatly, readers will be drawn in by the quirky characters and the outlandish story line, making it a purchase that definitely won't sit on shelves. A very strong debut novel.-Rebecca Gueorguiev, New York Public Library

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2012
Grades 4-6 In Levy's debut novel, Lilah Bloom gets one chapter as an ordinary seventh-grader before she is struck by lightning following her mother's wedding reception. She then starts hearing the voices of dead people. It's a somewhat disturbing realization that the deceased are lurking everywhere, unseen and able to enact both mischief and benevolent deeds, but Levy employs this premise not for chills but for middle-grade comedy and gentle pathos instead. Lilah has lived mostly with her dad since her parents' divorce, and her first order of businessat the direction of her dead grandmotheris to help find her father a new love. Lilah uses her power as a medium for good, resisting an attempt to profit financially from it, and Levy rewards her narrator-protagonist with the happiest (if predictable) of endings: she ends up with the boy she likes, a pleased dad, and the hot band of the moment dedicating a song to her.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)