The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle by Christina Uss
Published by Margaret Ferguson Books on June 5th 2018
ISBN: 0823440079
Pages: 320
Goodreads

Handpies! Family feuds! Stampeding pigs! A runaway Kentucky Derby horse! A man in a chicken suit! Mostly-silent monks! French cuisine! A friendly ghost! Cookies! And among all of this, a girl on a bicycle looking for a friend. This refreshing middle grade novel offers some of the quirkiest characters and scenes this reviewer has ever encountered. When Bicycle shows up at the Mostly Silent Monastery as a toddler wearing only a shirt with a bicycle on it (how she receives her name, of course), she is taken in by the not-so-silent, big-hearted, well-intentioned Sister Wanda who does all of the talking for the Mostly Silent Monks. She also does all of the schooling and socializing of Bicycle, or she tries to. When she gets it into her head that Bicycle needs to attend the Friendship Factory Camp, where she is guaranteed to make at least three friends, Bicycle knows that the only friend that she needs to make is the world-famous cyclist Zbig Sienkiewicz. So she sets off on a 4000-mile bike trip across the United States to prove her point and meet that friend. What follows is a madcap adventure like no other filled with silliness, fantastic scenarios, and plenty of delicious fried pies. Bicycle will win your heart and prove that making friends is easy when you have an open mind, a sympathetic ear, and a rumbling stomach.

Reviewed by Jill O’Connor, Merrill Memorial Library, Yarmouth