When a boating accident leaves Livie's mother in a coma, Livie's haunted by guilt, knowing she's the one responsible. She can't tell anyone her secret. She can only light candles at the church and pray for her mother to wake up, even just for an instant, so Livie can tell her how sorry she is for everything that went wrong the day of the accident. But Mamma's not waking up; in fact, the doctors can do nothing more for her. So, Daddy brings her home and sets her lifeless body in the parlor, hoping that surrounding Mamma with her family's love will snap her out of the coma.

Livie's creeped out by this new Mamma, who's nothing like the woman who used to paint pictures in the art cottage and row through the bayou to take casseroles to sick neighbors. She can't stand to touch Mamma's body, let alone help care for her. When Livie's Aunt Colleen sweeps in to help the family, Livie's relieved. The woman and her 9-year-old son are a thorn in Livie's side, but at least their presence frees Livie up to do the one thing she can do for Mamma - get a healing spell from Miz Allemond, the scary voodoo queen who lives on the edge of the swampland. With a little help from the traiteur, Livie knows she can atone for her sins by bringing Mamma back. She can't fail, not now when Daddy's losing work, Livie's older sister is about to get married, and everything else is falling apart. Not now, when they need Mamma more than ever.

Using lush detail to bring the bayou land to life, Kimberley Griffiths Little has penned a novel that is both atmospheric and affecting. The Healing Spell, a poignant coming-of-age story, gives us a heroine worth rooting for - a young girl who's hurting, but determined to right the wrongs she's caused. It also offers a vivid setting, a timeless wisdom, and the compelling tale of a family, unique, yet recognizable in their fragility and strength. Little gets everything right in this beautiful story of a child's search for redemption among the wild beauty of Louisiana's bayous and the even more treacherous depths of the human heart.

(Readalikes: Reminded me a teensy bit of Zora and Me by Victoria Bond & T.R. Simon)

Grade: B+

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG for very mild language and subject matter more suitable to older middle graders

To the FTC, with love: I bought The Healing Spell from Amazon using some of the millions I make from my lucrative career as a book blogger. Ha ha.

Think of your favorite literary characters. What makes them memorable? Chances are, each of the story people you love has a vibrant personality, or at least some trait or spark that makes them come alive on the page. Since one of my biggest reading pet peeves is cardboard, personality-less characters, I'm a bit obsessed with making the cast of my WIP stand out. So, in an effort to understand them all a little better, I turned to What Would Your Character Do? by family therapist Eric Maisel and his wife, Ann, a world literature teacher. Through the 30 personality quizzes the book offers, I did learn more about them. I also realized that I knew my main character a lot better than I thought I did. How about that, huh?

The idea behind the book, according to Dr. Maisel, boils down to this: "The writer, the true expert on human nature, can contrive anything in the realm of human behavior. But whatever she contrives, she must still meet certain tests of plausibility and legitimacy" (8). To that end, he provides a series of personality quizzes through which a writer can put his/her characters. Each exercise gives a situation - say, a family picnic or a fancy night out - which would provoke the character into taking action of some kind. For each possible action, Dr. Maisel provides a psychological analysis of the kind of person who would take that particular action. For instance, if your character hears the news that a deadly meteor is speeding toward Earth, and she reacts by jumping right up and making an action plan, that would be consistent with a "resourceful, matter-of-fact character ... [who] has a survivalist's instincts for preparation and self-protection" (265).

While the author recommends actually writing a scene for each scenario, I tired of that after the first two or three. But, I did read through each one, think about how my character(s) would handle the problem, then check to make sure his/her action was consistent with the personality I had given him/her. Doing this reassured me that I knew my main character pretty well. It also showed me which of my cast members need work.

The situations Dr. Maisel describes in What Would Your Character Do? are actually pretty run-of-the-mill, nothing revolutionary, but I found them instructive. Again, not revolutionary, but helpful. I would have liked a little more advice on how to create a psychologically complex character, even a step-by-step kind of tutorial. Still, I liked this book. It reads quickly and really did help me to flesh out my characters. Did it do everything I wanted it to? No, but that's okay. It did enough.

(Readalikes: This is the first book I've read dealing specific with building fictional characters, so I can't think of anything ... Can you?)

Grade: B-

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG-13 for mild language and one exercise which involves a sex shop

To the FTC, with love: Another library fine find