Gr 5-8-Elsa is having a hard time. Her mother recently died and she is moving to a new school right before the end of seventh grade. On her first day, she is ridiculed by Darcy and her friends, the ?ber-popular clique that Elsa would love to be a part of, or so she thinks. Thanks to a special appearance by her mom and a magical family heirloom, Elsa is gifted with the power of do-over: she can rewind the last 10 seconds of her life and change it as many times as she wants to, until her 13th birthday in a month's time. No, this is not a Lindsay Lohan movie; it's a typical coming-of-age, finding-yourself-among-snobs novel. Unfortunately, the writing is average and the characters are not fleshed out. Readers don't get much more than stereotypes: Elsa, the struggling newbie; Darcy, the stuck-up cheerleader; and Martin, the cute nerd. The theme is a bit too obvious and Elsa learns her lessons all too easily. Average fare, with a fast pace and lots of dialogue but little depth.-Carly B. Wiskoff, Sayville Library, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Deriso explores the possibility of having dreams coming true in this light comedy, told in the first person. Twelve-year-old Elsa Alden is overjoyed to be moving with her dad to a new town to live with her maternal grandmother, but is less enthusiastic about starting a new school in the middle of seventh grade. Predictably, her first day doesn't go well. Soon after, Elsa's dead mother visits her and gives her a magical pendant. For one month, Elsa can rewind the world for ten seconds by saying, "Do-over. . . . Just long enough to fix an embarrassing moment. For one month only." The pendant offers Elsa many opportunities, from stealing answers to passing on gossip. When Elsa is accused of cheating, she makes plans to give Darcy, the most popular girl in her class, her comeuppance, yet is unable to follow through with Darcy's ultimate humiliation. Though her comments seem older than her years (the seventh-graders are reading To Kill a Mockingbird), middle-schoolers who long to be popular may find this somewhat predictable story enjoyable. (Fiction. 9-12) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.