When wild, sweet Joss moves next door, he captures her heart, only to break it after becoming involved with Flora. But life has a way of drawing in even the reluctant. And Blue, almost 13, is watching from behind her video camera, trying not to get involved with life when it can hurt you so badly. The kids are being watched by male au pair Zoran. Dad spends most of his time in Warwick perhaps writing, perhaps having an affair (possibly both, of course). But now Iris is dead, and the family is falling apart. They used to be a unit: Flora, twins Bluebell and Iris, Twig, and Jasmine. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. The grand finale (which includes a miracle birth - remember the escaped rats?) is one of the best Christmas scenes ever. The arrival of two new characters, Zoran (an overwhelmed babysitter and doctoral student) and Joss (the intriguing new boy at school), shakes things up even more and is the catalyst for the Gadsbys to finally confront their sorrow and regroup as a family.

Behind the foreground rumpus is the shadow story, revealed in a series of flashbacks, of the death of Blue's twin sister, Iris, three years previously. Blue, a budding documentary filmmaker, is our reporter, and she gives us both narration and snippets of screenplay. Characters fall off swings, defenestrate themselves, get lost on the subway, and generally live at top volume and top speed. The Gadsby parents are busy, absent, or neglectful, la Hilary McKay's Casson family novels. The horticulturally named children of the British Gadsby family - teenage Flora, little kids Jasmine and Twig, and middle-schooler Bluebell (called Blue) - live in a world of unrelenting domestic mishap. Agent: Catherine Clarke, Felicity Bryan Associates. Blue's struggles are handled with honesty, and she makes a rewarding journey from observing her life to living it again and accepting what she has lost. debut, balances Blue's growth with wry humor and light moments (as when the rats make a chaotic visit to Blue's classroom in remote-control race cars). Then 16-year-old Joss moves in next door, saving Blue's social life and becoming her first crush, which is complicated when he begins dating Flora. Each chapter begins with a brief transcript of video diaries filmed by quiet, lonely Blue ('My plan is to record my life through words and images'). Between Blue's older sister Flora's rebelliousness, her two younger siblings' antics, and the family's pet rats, which live in the garden of their London home, Zoran has his hands full. Blue's father is working on the other side of the country, and their mother is traveling overseas, which leaves new au pair Zoran in charge. Twelve-year-old Bluebell Gadsby's family has been collapsing ever since Blue's twin sister, Iris, died three years ago.

The diaries of bluebell gadsby