Along the way, DiCamillo inserts the sort of characters one would expect in an epic, including several sage advisors and an invisible villain in the form of a social worker trying to take Louisiana to the County Home.Įach girl is wounded by the disappearance of an authority figure. Initially drawn together by the baton twirling lessons that they think will help them win the title of Miss Central Florida Tire 1975, the girls (Louisiana declares that they should be called ‘the Rancheros’) soon stray from their pageant aspirations in order to locate a lost library book and a cat allegedly consigned to the pound. In order to get to that recognizable ending, the three main characters – Raymie, Louisiana, and Beverly – set forth on a number of quests. True to form, DiCamillo delivers her characters from what seem to be insurmountable challenges equally true to form, she eschews a fairy tale sort of ending in favor of one more recognizable to young readers as a resolution they might actually encounter in their own lives.

Three quarters of the way through the book, you find yourself holding it at arm’s length, squinting at it with only one eye open, and hoping for the sort of redemption that wends its way through most of Kate DiCamillo’s other novels. It is hard to review a book like Raymie Nightingale without wanting to append a great big post-modern ‘spoiler alert’ in flashing red letters, because a full appraisal necessitates mentioning the ending.

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