After overhearing her parents comment on her size, third grader Julia Marks tells her dog Ramon she will never say the word "short" again. A few years later, Julia is still not saying the "s" word. When her beloved Ramon dies, she looks for new ways to be happy without him. Auditioning for a regional theater production of The Wizard of Oz is not what she has in mind, but her mother has her own ideas. When Julia lands the part of a Munchkin, her natural optimism and practicality take over, in spite of her plans to spend the summer mourning Ramon. And when she meets the director, in his cantaloupe-colored jumpsuit, and Olive, a confident, fashionable woman with dwarfism who's also playing a Munchkin, she's sold. What started as a gloomy summer turns out to be a time of towering growth for Julia: "Not on the outside, but on the inside." And, as she says, "That's the only place where growing really matters."
Based on Holly Goldberg Sloan's (Counting by 7s; Appleblossom the Possum) own childhood experiences, Short is tall on heart and wit. Julia is honest and insightful, oblivious to her own charm. She wonders about bias (Can her 76-year-old neighbor be a flying monkey? Can her friend with dwarfism date a six-foot-tall man?) and about the definition of art ("Maybe the answer is: Imagination mixed with Emotion. Or maybe not."). Short is delightfully readable, especially for those who like the idea of "trying to make people see the world and their life in a different way." --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor