Anna Either Way — Lisa Cerasoli

2019 Independent Publishers Book Awards Winner for Juvenile Fiction-Bronze Medal.Anna is a happy kid leading a regular, Midwestern, American-girl existence. She loves drawing, sports, walking her two dogs (Big Guy and Little Guy), and chasing rainbows with her bestie, Sierra. Then her parents split up and life as she knows it vanishes. Suddenly, she has two houses, one of which is a real cracker box. She loses her shoes, books, mittens, and can no longer keep track of the days of the week. She misses her old life and worst of all: she can't take any more sad smiles from the kids and teachers at school. Her life sucks. Bigtime. But she can watch TV with the volume over 30, eat gummies for breakfast, and talk Mom into skipping school. There are some perks to her situation....EXCERPT:So, Halloween happened, by the way. I bet you were wondering about that. I didn't mess up this story, I just, well, I wasn't in the mood to bring it up, or even talk about it: Halloween. I was so mad about my new terrible life. We went to my cousin's like usual because they have a kid-friendly neighborhood, which was code for lots of candy. It doesn't even matter what I went as 'cause my life was so bad that dumb things like stupid Halloween no longer mattered.But I was a ninja. And it was awesome. You could not even tell if I was a boy or a girl unless I turned around 'cause my hair was falling out of the back of the ninja hood. I guess you could tell, now that I think about it 'cause I spun and kicked in the air all afternoon, showing off my stunts. Mom sewed a Chinese Warrior symbol on my costume. That's what made it so special. When my aunt saw me, she asked, Are you a good ninja? I couldn't believe it. I looked so scary. Then she said my shirt had the Chinese symbol for Love on it.This means Warrior, I explained, but she said it didn't, and I couldn't even fight back 'cause she's older. In my head I fought back, though. I told her she ought to find some Chinese lessons somewhere if she doesn't know the difference between Love and Warrior. What kind of ninja would wear Love on their chest? That would be so stupid. Pardon my Italian. I shouldn't be making fun of holidays or my relatives, and I really shouldn't be calling everything stupid. I was in a real mood on Halloween. Mom would be so mad at me if she knew about this. I was an awesome ninja. Even though my life had fallen apart, no one could tell because I was hiding under the best costume ever. And that was the best part of all.