Like her charming Love, Ruby Lavender (2001), Wiles' second middle-grade novel is set in the colorful, cloistered climes of rural Aurora County, Mississippi. The narrator here is 10-year-old Comfort, who lives happily in the funeral home run by her family. A born reporter, she writes obituaries for the local paper. If only they weren't so opinionated, they might even be printed. As accustomed to funerals as she thinks she is, though, the deaths of her great-uncle, great-great-aunt, and beloved dog, Dismay, throw her for a loop. There's also the possible defection of her best friend, Declaration Johnson, and the overwrought emotional displays of her younger cousin. Comfort relates the deaths of the older family members on the first page of the book, but the dramatic disappearance of Dismay in a flash flood is told with a keen sense of suspense. Even aside from such happy extras as funeral food recipes and Comfort's Top Ten Tips for First-Rate Funeral Behavior, Wiles succeeds wonderfully in capturing the messy glory of grief and life.

Comfort Snowberger, daughter of the undertaker in Snapfinger, Mississippi, knows all about dying. It's life that causes her problems because it's so danged unpredictable. Life gets truly messy when her great-great-aunt dies, and Comfort must look after her annoying, clinging cousin Peach. Wiles's writing vividly portrays the rural southern setting, using a leisurely pace to introduce Comfort and her colorful family.

Comfort Snowberger has attended 247 funerals, not because she's morose but because the Snowberger Funeral Home in Snapfinger, Mississippi, is where she lives with her family. In fact, the dead center of the story, so to speak, is the funeral home. When Uncle Edisto dies and then 90-year-old, great-great-Aunt Florentine, Comfort learns that "it's not how you die that makes the important impression, it's how you live." A difficult belief to accept when tragedy strikes Comfort, her dog, Dismay, and her eight-year-old sniveling cousin, Peach, all caught in a flash flood on the way to Florentine's graveside service. As Comfort clutches Peach to keep him from going under, Dismay is swept away. Despite the setting and plot, the story is not morbid but is an original celebration of life. Unique characters, inventive names (Comfort's best friend Declaration, who betrays their friendship), a fresh voice and an honest portrayal of life and death are a match made in heaven—and despite the bland title, a memorable tribute to the joys of living. (Fiction. 8-12)

"I come from a family with a lot of dead people," says Comfort Snowberger, introducing her clan, the proprietors of small town Snapfinger, Mississippi's only funeral home. Having attended 247 funerals by age 10, Comfort knows grief, but she's tested by the back-to-back deaths of Great-uncle Edisto and Great-great-aunt Florentine, whom she finds face down in the garden, expired. More trials come as her best friend abandons her while her nebbishy cousin, Peach, clings. Worst of all, when Comfort and Peach get caught in a surprise flood of the creek, Comfort forces Peach to let go of her beloved dog in order to save himself. Despite the three-hanky plot and Comfort's unvarnished view of death ("My parents smell like a mixture of gardenias and embalming fluid"), this is a funny book. Credit Comfort's refreshing naïveté. Her "Life Notices" (instead of obituaries) for the paper include lines such as, "people look forward to dying and coming to Snowberger's for their laying out" (even though the publisher keeps telling her, "Facts, Comfort, not opinions"). Repeating the winning formula she used in <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Love, Ruby Lavender, Wiles mixes letters, news reports, recipes and lists such as, "Top Ten Tips for First-Rate Funeral Behavior," into the narrative, making a difficult topic go down like lemonade at a picnic. Fans of <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Ruby Lavender will enjoy the overlapping characters and setting, but what they'll really want is a third book—where Comfort and Ruby get together. Ages 8-12. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Mar.)

Gr 4-6-"I come from a family with a lot of dead people." So begins this narrative by 10-year-old Comfort Snowberger, who prides herself on taking death in stride-after all, her family owns and operates the funeral parlor in the small town of Snapfinger, MS. Then loss hits closer to home, first with the death of Great-uncle Edisto and, a few months later, with Great-great-aunt Florentine. During a storm on the way to the cemetery, flooding causes an accident involving Comfort; her irritating, emotional cousin, Peach; and her beloved dog, Dismay, who drowns. Interspersed throughout is the story of the girl's changing relationship with her friend Declaration Johnson, who seems to be dropping her. Comfort writes and submits "Life Notices" (as opposed to Death Notices) to the Aurora County News, along with such items as her "Top Ten Tips for First-rate Funeral Behavior" ("This is not a good time to remind the family that the deceased owes you money"), and, for friends, a recipe or two. Sensitive, funny, and occasionally impatient, Comfort is a wholly sympathetic protagonist who learns that emotions may not be as easy to control as she had assumed. While the book is a bit too long and some of the Southern eccentricity wears thin, this is a deeply felt novel.-Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.