Stork, by Wendy Delsol

I have to write about Stork before I forget.

I read Stork, by Wendy Delsol last month but I obviously went on to something else before I got it written down- I really like retellings of fairy tales or re-inventions of how myths get started and Stork is a good example of this.

Katia Leblanc is 16 and a reluctant new resident of a small northern Minnesota town. Not only is she new to the town, she has to start over at a high school smack dab in the middle of a whole class of kids who have known each other forever. Even though Katia has been to visit her grandfather before, she doesn't really know anyone else.

One night, she meets the old woman who owns the fabric store across the street from the grocery store her grandfather owns and she helps out in. This meeting heralds a huge change in her life, combining ancient worlds and rites and modern day choices about life and death. She is inducted into the Icelandic Stork Society, an order of women with the ability to connect unborn children with the correct mother.

If that's not enough, she has to deal with a bad decision she made with BMOC Wade at a party and some interesting feelings she has with Jack, a boy she fights with every time they meet, even though she feels strangely drawn to him.

This was a really intriguing read. I hate the cover, it certainly doesn't evoke any of the innards of the book. I picked it up thinking, "Okay, read a page or two and then you can take it back to the store and leave it." Nope, you're right, I had to finish it. Absolutely riveting and will be one of those books you can recommend to teens who like fairy tales. Age 12 and up. (Candlewick. Available now. $15.99.)