Odessa Again by Dana Reinhardt (review)

It's originally just the lure of getting away from her despised younger brother that leads fourth-grader Odessa to take the attic as her bedroom in her mom's new post-divorce house. Soon, though, she finds that the attic has a special feature: if she stomps right in the middle of the floor, it takes her back in time, twenty-four hours the first time, an hour less each succeeding go. Thrilled to have the do-over opportunities that any nine-year-old would long for, she rewinds in order to prevent herself from farting in front of the boy she likes, to claim lost money initially found by her brother, to take back telling her best friend the time-travel secret. Can she find a way to make the magic give her what she really wants—her father's upcoming wedding canceled and her parents back together? Reinhardt takes a simple fantastical premise and uses it as the engine for a sharply perceptive and sympathetic account of a girl's struggle through a difficult time. Odessa's choices are absolutely credible and often not very admirable (even when she does finally decide to be helpful to her brother, it's without regard to his wishes), and the economics of her magical decision-making are fascinating and authentic (the selection of after-dinner dessert is a strong influence). Odessa herself is an interesting character, with a tendency toward bullying her brother and impulsively shoving people, but she's also spunky and sympathetic; the book is subtle about her post-divorce distress and appropriately gentle with her parental-reconciliation fantasy, which even magic can't grant her. Even readers past Odessa's age will be intrigued by the possibilities, and the book could also absorb listeners as a chapter-by-chapter readaloud. Final illustrations not seen.