Help Mibs to blow out 13 dripping candles and discover her "savvy."

All Mibs wants for her 13th birthday is to blow out thirteen dripping candles. Well, that, and to discover her savvy. A savvy is the special talent bestowed upon most Beumonts on their 13th birthday. One brother generates electricity; the other hurricanes. The Beaumont family had to move to a desolate area between Nebraska & Kansas to avoid causing natural disasters. All goes awry in the Beumont household when Mibs’ poppa is in a near-fatal car accident. Instead of her anticipated birthday party, the adults go to the hospital and she is undertaken by the local preacher’s wife. Worried about her Poppa and hoping that her yet-to-be-discovered savvy may be just the thing to cure him, Mibs stows away with her siblings and the preacher’s kids on a traveling salesman’s pink bible bus. Ingrid Law takes the reader on a thrilling roller coaster ride where the situation goes from bad to worse, as the bus travels in the wrong direction and Mibs finally discovers her true savvy. 

If you enjoyed The Lightning Thief, you are likely to enjoy this title too. Law narrates the story with humor and compassion for the awkwardness felt by preteens discovering their talents while their bodies are changing. Movie rights have been purchased for this title making it a good choice for book-to-movie clubs. Grades 4-8.

Law, Ingrid. (2008). Savvy. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.
ISBN: 0803733062
Cover art link from ALISCat - a catalog of public libraries in Nassau County, NY.