Elizabeth Atkinson
Alice likes playing soccer and working on her go-kart with her dad. But when she moves to the suburbs, she learns from Zen, the boy down the street, that she has no hope of fitting in at her new middle school unless she starts acting more "like a girl." At first, Alice doesn't mind that she isn't just like Haley and Yvette, the school's reigning princesses. Then she realizes that being different can set you apart...and being friends with someone like Zen can set you way apart. Why does being yourself have to be so complicated?
"I, Emma Freke, am not a freak. Or maybe I am. I just don't know."
What's in a name? I, Emma Freke is a charming search-for-identity story about Emma―the only "normal" member of her quirky family. Her flighty, New Age mom seems to barely have time for a daughter, especially one who annoyingly spoils her mom's youthful façade. Emma's well-meaning grandpa is clueless. And her only friends are the local librarian and a precocious 10-year old adopted by the two old ladies next door.
Smart, shy, and nearly six feet tall, Emma struggles to fit in at school, so she jumps at the opportunity to "home school" until that too turns into another of mom's half-baked ideas.
The real crisis comes when she gets an invitation to The Freke Family Reunion, and her fellow Frekes aren't at all what she expects. While Emma desperately tries to find her niche, she discovers that perhaps it's better to be her own "freak" than someone else's Freke.
