As Footer tries to make sense of her mother's disjointed conversations, the line touches her mother, too-readers will be moved and reassured to discover that even in her illness, her mother is still a mother, watching out for Footer in her own ways. What if Footer is inheriting her mother's illness? Worse, what if her mother was involved in the murder? When everything seems like a symptom on the Internet, the line between 'normal' and 'crazy' blurs, and Vaught traces it with realistic care.

Suddenly, Footer is seeing a girl in flames and hearing her mother's voice.

The notebook entries provide levity, light romance and strong touches of character development in an increasingly tense plot. Coinciding with her mother's latest episode is the case of two children who disappeared in a fire after a murder, which Footer and her friends are determined to solve, their record of the investigation playing out via interviews and banter in their notebooks. For Footer, normality includes her mother going off her medication and pulverizing snakes with an elephant gun, leading to hospitalization for her bipolar disorder. 'I was so far from normal, it wasn't even funny-except, of course, when it was,' remarks Footer Davis, establishing the tone for an investigation into missing kids and parental mental illness. But when visiting the crime scene makes Footer begin to have “episodes” of her own, she wonders if maybe she’s getting sick like her mom, and that’s a mystery that she’s not at all sure she wants to solve. Footer wants to be a journalist and her friend Peavine wants to be a detective, so the two decide to help with the mystery of the missing kids. “Bless their hearts” is also what folks say about Cissy and Doc Abrams, two kids who went missing after a house fire. She just shot a snake in Footer’s yard with an elephant gun, and now she’s been shipped off to a mental hospital, and Footer is missing her fiercely yet again. It means, “You’re beyond help.” That’s what folks say about fifth grader Footer Davis’s mom, who “ain’t right” because of her bipolar disorder. “Bless your heart” is a saying in the South that sounds nice but really isn’t. “A sensitive, suspenseful mystery that deftly navigates the uncertainty of mental illness.” - Kirkus Reviewsįooter Davis is on the case when two kids go missing after a fire in this humorously honest novel that is full of Southern style. “Like its heroine, this contemporary mystery is compelling, offbeat, and fearless.” - The Horn Book Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best mysteryīank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year

Insanity by susan vaught