The Fourteenth Goldfish

Sixth grade isn't going so well for Ellie.  Her best friend is now obsessed with volleyball and has less time for Ellie, but Ellie has yet to find the thing she is passionate about.  She's not artistic like her divorced parents.  Her mother is a former actor turned school counselor, and her father still makes his living as a professional actor. They've tried to make Ellie into an actor, but it just isn't her thing.

Her world is in for a crazy turn when her mother comes home late one night with an odd 13 year old boy named Melvin who turns out to be her long lost grandfather.  Melvin has been working on the cure to aging his entire life, and he's finally found success with some odd consequences.  No one believes he's the real Melvin; he's just a kid.  Now that he's a kid again, the law thinks Melvin needs supervision, and all the conflict Ellie's artistic mother has had with her scientist father come home to roost.  Now Melvin is the same bossy and stubborn old man he was before but in the body of a kind of cute teenager!

As Ellie begins helping Melvin recover his formula, she discovers something about herself.  Ellie loves science, too!  Is the world ready for the cure to aging?  Read Jennifer L. Holm's new book to find out!  I really enjoyed this one--fun and thoughtful!