How It Happened in Peach Hill.

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Should any middle school readers find the book’s title somewhat familiar, that’s because they first encountered it connected to a short story in the 2005 collection called Secrets. Readers who came away from that story wanting to know more about the happenings involving 15-year-old Annie Grey and Mama will be pleased by the novel’s contents.

It’s 1924, and the mother-daughter con artist pair, having just experienced a run-in with local law enforcement, have moved on to another small community, Peach Hill in New York state, where Mama has hung out her shingle as the clairvoyant Madame Caterina. Among Annie’s ongoing roles as her mother’s increasingly reluctant assistant is that of playing the part of an “imbecile.” In that guise, Annie wanders the streets eavesdropping on adults’ conversations and then feeding what she hears to Mama, who incorporates the information into her “readings” and conversations with her customers’ “dearly departed.” Smitten by the local hunk, Sammy Sloane, Annie sheds her intellectual guise by publicly pretending that her mother has miraculously restored her to normalcy. Although the miracle’s notoriety increases Madame Caterina’s local trade as a healer, Annie’s independent initiative also signals to Mama that the mother-daughter dynamics have changed. As a maturing adolescent, Annie seeks other forms of normalcy, including attending school, having friends, and living in the same place for an extended period.

Jocelyn offers readers lots of fun, including observing through Annie’s eyes the attempt by one of Mama’s financial targets, a supposedly wealthy widower, to run his own scam on Mama. Highly recommended.