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Read for the 2016 YA/MG Book Battle. This book about a girl with cerebral palsy learning to function outside her special school was fun to read, but slight compared to others of this year's Book Battle that are also about family and friendship (Binny in Secret and The Penderwicks in Spring particularly). Sarah Jane (Sal) has been living at a school for children with "motor handicaps" for many years, but her parents have decided she's finally capable of integrating into a public school. Once at home, Sal faces many challenges, not all of which derive from her condition, which was one of the things I liked about the book. Sal's cerebral palsy is treated with great sensitivity, but never used as the Big Issue in how others treat her except by one character, who is himself damaged and whose reactions to Sal come off more as his reactions to his own situation. Sal's friendships form the heart of the book. I liked the way she wasn't the only outsider, and how the Dutch girl Elsje reacted to Sal--again, not as a disabled person, but as a threat to her own friendships. Elsje's brother Piet was one of my favorite characters, not because he's likeable (he isn't) but because his situation, being an outsider, being physically damaged, made him compelling. The only character I didn't like was Sal's father, who kept sounding like the Professor on Gilligan's Island. He was just too wise to be real. I have to say I think in terms of how it handles disability, this book aged well, given how differently we think about disability fifty years later. It functions on one level as a guide to cerebral palsy without turning too much into a lecture, though it made me wonder how cerebral palsy is treated these days, whether Sal's experience still has meaning. But even though Sal struggles realistically with her disability, many of the other relationships felt too obvious: the antagonism of the other "new girl," Sal's older sister who is unrelentingly negative about Sal's capabilities, S