Nan Gregory is a gifted storyteller who has written a number of award-winning picture books, including How Smudge Came. I’ll Sing You One-O is her ambitious debut as a YA novelist. Set in and around Gregory’s hometown of Vancouver, it is a variation on the age-old tale of the lost child found. Twelve-year-old Gemma, however, adamantly does not wish to be claimed.

When the Anderson Farm, the happy, hippie foster home where she has lived for eight years, is closed down, Gemma fights tooth and nail against leaving. She is dismayed when an aunt, uncle, and twin brother she didn’t know she had suddenly appear to take her to their home. Desperate to return to the farm, she tries sorcery and spells. Learning that angels come to the aid of saintly folk who help the poor, she gives away her allowance and any other cash and valuables she can lay her hands on. Her intentions are good, but the mayhem and collateral damage – everything from physical assault to stealing library books to bomb threats – take their toll.

Gregory works a number of threads here, including a complex psychological mystery rooted in Emma’s past. The backdrop of childhood trauma, abandonment, spousal abuse, homelessness, and other issues, seen through the vortex of Gemma’s cyclonic emotions, makes for an intense, and at times hair-raising, read. The characters are intriguing, although the large cast means they are often sketchy and undeveloped. The vocabulary is somewhat sophisticated (phrases like “diversionary tactics” and “fake psychologizing” abound) for the suggested reading age, but bright 11- and 12-year-olds and even older readers should enjoy the harum-scarum ride.