Gingersnap by Patricia Reilly Giff (review)

When Janya's big brother, Rob, leaves to go to war on a Navy destroyer in the Pacific, Jayna must go to stay with their landlady, Celine, an arrangement that is unsettling for both Jayna and Celine. Even more disturbing is the fact that Jayna has started to hear a voice speaking to her and sometimes sees facets of a person: a lock of ginger hair that disappears into nothing, a pair of feet, hands wearing Jayna's nail polish. After Jayna receives news that Rob is missing in action, the spirit guides Jayna to leave Celine's and head to Brooklyn to find a woman named Elise, who owns a bakery, Gingersnap (also Jayna's nickname from her dead mother), and who may be Jayna's grandmother. This is an unusual little slice of World War II American life that will have wide appeal. Historical-fiction buffs will be intrigued by the wartime period details of Jayna's life while the partial manifestation of the ghost girl is intriguing but not too creepy. Jayna's search for her extended family may resonate with kids with foster-care experience, and her yearning for a home is an entirely understandable desire, even for kids who have never been displaced from their own. The soup recipes (from Jayna's family cookbook) interspersed throughout the text may also inspire readers to do some post-story cooking.