Cleaning Up by Leanne Lieberman

Jess finds a secret diary and imagines what it would be like to be a girl who has everything. Will she become so wrapped up in someone else's life that she misses a chance to create her own?

Jess cleans houses to save money for college, because her dad unemployed and off the wagon yet again has moved the two of them out of the city into a decrepit borrowed tent and trailer. Jess wavers between anger at her father and fear that poverty and addiction may be her fate, too, and she decides she will do whatever it takes to avoid it.

She gets a gig cleaning a gorgeous country home and discovers the trashed bedroom of the teenaged daughter, Quinn. Jess wonders how a girl with a perfect life private school, horseback riding could have wrecked such a beautiful room. As she cleans, she finds troubling clues including, tucked behind the bed, a diary.

Gradually Jess learns that Quinn's life is not what it's supposed to be. Jess begins to imagine becoming friends with Quinn, and when she begins to write down a new story for Quinnshe risks turning her back on the opportunities that are right in front of her new friends, new interests, a fresh beginning. (From Groundwood Books)

Cleaning Up is for ages 13 and up.

Leanne Lieberman is a teacher and writer. Her previous books include The Most Dangerous Thing, Gravity and The Book of Trees. She lives in Kingston.