Amherst, Massachusetts, author Catherine Newman set her first middle-grade novel, "One Mixed-Up Night", in an unlikely setting -- the giant Swedish furniture store Ikea.
Here's the opening age, in the voice of the narrator, a spunky six-grader named Frankie:
The funny thing is this: people think that dorky geeks who read all the time are the kinds of kids who don't get into trouble. But they're wrong. We Do. And I'm telling you this from experience. I'm telling you this because there was a moment when Walter and I were scrunched into a pair of hanging chairs in the Ikea showroom at four in the morning, thrilled and terrified, hiding from the security guard with her walkie-talkie, and I thought, We wouldn't even be here if we hadn't read the books we've read.
