- A Starred Choice of the Canadian Children's Book Centre
Review
Chad and Jill are young people with problems. Chad's mother has died and his father is suffocating him with unwanted attention. Jill's father is a gambler and his financial recklessness has made life miserable for the family. When he steals the money her mother has saved for Jill's dance lessons, she decides to run away for a day or two to teach them a lesson.
Through a series of errors, Jill winds up hiding on the Nova Scotia property of Chad's grandparents. Chad and his father, as usual, are spending their holiday there, the first one without Chad's mother. Chad finds Jill and tries to help her; to do this, he must stand up to his father.
The story is told in alternating narratives by Jill and Chad, mainly in the present tense. Their differing perspectives on the same event and their different sources of confusion and unhappiness are well handled.