The world is a dangerous, messy place for humans in My Diary from the Edge of the World by Jodi Lynn Anderson (Tiger Lily; the May Bird trilogy).
Dragons, sasquatches, mermaids and other monsters are as real as the nearby Taco Bell in this parallel universe, but they rarely come to Cliffden, Maine. Twelve-year-old Gracie Lockwood begins her new diary lamenting that "nothing terrible or exciting" ever happens in her town, although "last week one [a dragon] burned down the T.J. Maxx in Valley Forge." Far more troubling than monsters are the unstoppable Dark Clouds that come to take people when they die. When one appears in Gracie's neighborhood, she knows it must be after her sickly little brother, Sam. Determined to escape the Cloud, Gracie's physics-minded father pins his hopes on the Extraordinary World, a legendary land beyond "the edge of the world," where Sam will be safe. Packing into an old Winnebago, Gracie, Sam, her perplexing 16-year-old sister, Millie, her parents, and her strange new classmate Oliver Wigley (recently orphaned by a sasquatch attack) set out into the unknown. It will take courage, trust and the love of family to survive this wild world.
Spanning from Maine to the Smoky Mountains to San Cristobal, Anderson's charming novel is part road-trip adventure, part maritime quest and part coming-of-age story. Gracie starts out loud, "kind of fiery" and unforgiving, but wises up considerably as she realizes even sasquatches deserve a second chance. Gracie starts to see that the extraordinary is everywhere, and "sometimes, the way everything looks--who's the beast and who isn't--depends on where you're standing." --Kyla Paterno, reviewer