The Girl With the Glass Bird

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 The Girl With the Glass Bird, by Esme Kerr

I used to enjoy the Bookshelves of Doom blog, and now she's over on Substack.  She enjoyed this story, and it was free to me on Kindle, so here we are.  I'd call it age 10+ -- a little older than a middle-grade novel, and good for a YA audience too.

Edie has been raised by her grandmother Babka, but Babka has gone blind and is moving to a nursing home.  There's nowhere for Edie to go except to her aunt's house, where her three cousins torment her mercilessly -- so when a distant relative offers her a job of sorts at an old-fashioned girls' boarding school, she jumps at it.

Anastasia is a dreamy Anglo-Russian whose wealthy father is worried that she is being bullied at school.  Edie's job is to watch and find out just what is going on.  Anastasia keeps losing things, thinking they're stolen, and then finding them again in odd places.  She's earning a reputation as a drama addict who probably has mental problems, but Edie is sure that can't be the case.  It seems like somebody is deliberately tormenting Anastasia, but as Edie suspects various girls in turn, they are each proven innocent.  And meanwhile, the headmistress of the school has obviously got some kind of history with Edie's mother, who died years ago.  There's more than one mystery here.

This is a very readable story, exciting and not too predictable.  A great read for ages 10+.  There's a sequel too, and I wonder if it's as good?



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