One Year in Coal Harbor

Horvath, Polly. One Year in Coal Harbor.
11 September 2012, Schawartz and Wade.
Nominated for the Cybils by Lackywanna

Primrose Squarp is back, and so are her parents, after being missing for a while during Everything on a Waffle (2001). She is settling back in with her parents, trying to arrange her Uncle Jack's romance for him, and hanging out with her former foster parents, Bert and Evie, whose dog Quincehead just passed away. Feeling lonely, they agree to take in another foster child, Ked, with whom Primrose gets along famously. When nearby Mendolay Mountain is in danger of being strip mined, the community rallies to try to stop it, and even Miss Bowzer helps the "hippies" who show up to protest. Ked runs into some troubles, and his father comes to get him at one point. In the end, Primrose manages to get everything in her small town squared away to her satisfaction.
Strengths: Even though her parents are back, Primrose is given a lot of freedom, and both the sense of community and place in the book is strong.
Weaknesses: The first book hasn't left the shelf in my library for four years, so I'm wondering about the interest in a sequel. It doesn't help that the cover art on the new book doesn't look anything like the first.