Book Blog -- REMARKABLE by Lizzie K. Foley

Not everything in the town of Remarkable is remarkable, even though the terribly interesting and even more terribly talented people won’t admit this to just anyone.  It has a very dull post office, for instance, and it has a Coffeebucks that sells coffee that is very good, but certainly no better than the coffee served at any other Coffeebucks in any other town.  And then there is Jane, who is a very unremarkable girl, ten years old, of medium height, with eyes of no particular color, and hair that is not quite brown enough to be called mousy.  


Jane is the only student in town who lacks the talent to enroll in Remarkable’s School for the Remarkably Gifted, and therefore she’s the only one who goes to the regular public school. But when the nefarious Grimlet twins join Jane’s 5th grade class, she soon finds herself on a series of adventures involving an out-of-control science fair project, a pirate captain on the run from a mutinous crew, a lonely dentist with no patients, jelly with artificial preservatives, and a newly constructed bell tower that endangers Remarkable’s most beloved inhabitant: a skittish lake monster named Lucky.  


It is up to Jane, in her own modest style, to stop the science fair project, rescue the pirate captain, befriend the dentist, eat jelly, and save Lucky the Lake Monster so that Remarkable can remain the remarkable place it has always been.  Along the way, she learns that gifts and talents don’t always bring happiness, and that sometimes being ordinary has its advantages.  From Foley's website.

This synopsis, though terribly interesting, does not do this remarkable novel justice.  REMARKABLE is replete with fascinating characters, quirky insights, delightful wordplay and Foley's brilliantly light-hearted voice.  Weeks after reading it, I still find myself chuckling over Captain Rojo Herring, the Grimlet twins and the idea of perfect dentistry.

And thinking about Jane.  Who represents all of us who have felt unnoticed or outshone, and inspires us to look past our own ordinariness to see we are all capable of great things and deserve to be the focus of our own stories.