Clare makes a momentous decision: time to grow up and say goodbye to Elsa, her dearest soulmate. Clare’s mother thinks Elsa has been out of Clare’s life since Grade 1, but Elsa is still around, bright, funny, an infinitely comforting best friend – but alas, an imaginary one.

Clare can’t face the final split, so she comes to an arrangement with her chum: no communication until the summer’s end. Elsa flies off to Paris but Clare is stuck in her horrible Grade 7 life with only one real friend, the geeky Paul, and he’s moving away.

As pubescent angst goes, this isn’t a very dark sort. On the brink of 13, Clare isn’t yet in murky sexual territory. Besides wit and intelligence, she has on her side a cool young aunt and a mother who has left a high-powered job to become more involved with her family. Clare also finds out she can run, a discovery owing something to an extremely cute coach, Mr. Bianchini (shades of Bend It Like Beckham, without the soccer). Beating the most popular girl in school may not win friends but it does get respect.

Prinz tells the old YA story of a social outcast with a hopeless crush and clueless parents, but it’s one that never goes stale for younger readers. Now living in San Francisco, the Edmonton-born writer has a smart-mouthed, subtle style and does really clever things with her imaginative premise. The characters in this first novel are bound to win a following for the planned sequels. (A CBC-TV series based on these books is also in the planning stages.) You’ve got to love a kid who in packing away her childhood toys puts the heads of her Barbies in one box and the bodies in another.