Elizabeth Atkinson plumbs the world of middle-schoolers in her novel “The Sugar Mountain Snow Ball” through the eyes of Ruby LaRue, a sixth grader who lives in the small town of Paris, New Hampshire. Few in school know much more about her than that she is “friendly, kinda short, a little plus-size …” This although she grew up in Paris. Her best friend Eleanor Bandaranaike, whose family recently settled here from Sri Lanka, is as much on the margins of the middle school world as Ruby is. Fortunately they have each other.

Their humdrum lives are altered dramatically when they slip down an unexplored alley to Madame Magnifique, “the world’s most divine psychic,” for a free reading capable of unlocking “your deepest dreams.” Madame Magnifique tells Eleanor that “Once your creativity is unleashed, there will be no stopping you from realizing your fullest potential and achieving your deepest drrream.” The woman tells Ruby, “In order to unlock your deepest drrream, you must go outside your world, to the unfamiliar, reaching far beyond your comfort zone.”

Ruby knows exactly what her reading means. More than anything she wants to be an “Outer” – one of the rich kids who come to town during the season to ski on Sugar Mountain, who are “perfectly happy and pretty and smart and having incredible clothes and going to the Snow Ball” – the annual, holiday gala dinner and dance at the ski resort. Hopefully, she’ll be going with JB Knox, one of the popular kids at school, on whom she has a crush. Eleanor’s big dream is to design haute couture. “I’m passionate about every aspect of designing clothes – sketching, cutting, sewing, fabric – and especially the thought of people wearing my original creations.”

Challenges and hurdles stand in the way of both girls achieving their dreams. Eleanor wants to learn how to ski in order to join with the “outers” who come to ski at Sugar Mountain. But she doesn’t know how to ski or have the money to take lessons. Eleanor’s path is seemingly blocked by her parents, who desire that she not be caught up in the frivolousness of childhood, that she focus on her studies so that she can one day become an engineer. Ruby is burdened with having to come straight home from school to care for her two younger brothers, as her stepmother works at the ski resort bakery. Eleanor likewise has to go straight home to study. The two girls do manage, however, to steal moments together in the park at a picnic table they deem “Dream Central.” Here they plot out how they both can escape the confines of their fates. Eleanor will begin to knit mittens and headbands and other items that Ruby can sell to stores in the village.

They are successful beyond their wildest dreams. Ruby saves her money for ski lessons, and Eleanor for an expensive sewing machine that she has long coveted.

All things seem to be going according to plan – until disaster upends Ruby’s plans to master skiing. Until Eleanor becomes inadvertently entangled in a secret she feels she must keep from Ruby. Their original set of hurdles is superseded by new ones that challenge their assumptions – primarily about other people, including peers and parents and one another. Painful truths must be faced.

The hardcover version of Atkinson’s novel won the Gold Medal for Pre-Teen Fiction in 2016, and was a finalist for a 2016 Maine Writers and Publishers Association (MWPA) Literary Award. The paperback version was released at the end of last year. She divides her time between the North Shore of Massachusetts and western Maine.

Elizabeth Atkinson ably sets up the story arc and peoples it with compelling, engaging characters who surely will resonate with young readers, weaving their dreams and struggles into an illuminating middle-grade tale.

Frank O Smith’s novel, “Dream Singer,” was named a Notable Book of the Year in Literary Fiction in 2014 by “Shelf Unbound,” an international review magazine. His novel was also a finalist for the Bellwether Prize, created by best-selling novelist Barbara Kingsolver. In addition to writing fiction, he is a ghostwriter and writing instructor. Smith can be reached via his website:

frankosmithstories.com