When Mischief Came to Town by Katrina Nannestad

Synopsis:

In the tradition of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES and PIPPI LONGSTOCKING comes a heart-warming novel about love, family, grief, joy and the power of laughter and imagination.

When Inge Maria arrives on the tiny island of Bornholm in Denmark to live with her grandmother, she's not sure what to expect. Her grandmother is stern, the people on the island are strange, and children are supposed to be seen and not heard.   But no matter how hard Inge tries to be good, mischief has a way of finding her.     Could it be that a bit of mischief is exactly what Grandmother and the people of Bornholm need? 


My thoughts:

This was a really cute middle grade novel about a recently orphaned girl, Inge Maria, going to live with a grandmother she has never before met. Inge Maria is a character full of imagination and spunk (think Anne of Green Gables), thanking her silverware and trying her best to be "good," but never quite succeeding. I liked the positive message of individualism and marching to your own beat, to use that old idiom, versus trying to conform to societal expectations of how girls and women should behave.

There is also a very nice side story about Inge Maria's school friend, who also has a complicated history of loss, and desperately needs some kindness in his life. 

Have you read When Mischief Came to Town? What were your thoughts?