“Here on Coney Island, we learn to take each other as we are.”

Magruder’s Curiosity Cabinet, set on Coney Island in 1904, has quite the cast of characters — funny, freaky folk who make their living off the “Dozens” (as in, “Dime a”) who come to gawk at them every day. But when a serious illness hits the island, the Unusuals (as they call themselves) discover just how dangerous it can be to live on the fringes of society — and how important it is to band together. And for little Kitty Hayward, visiting from England and suddenly without a family, these Unusual represent her only hope.

I really liked this one — I read the whole thing in one day, poolside on vacation, and it made for an excellent way to pass the afternoon. Wood does more than describe a bunch of “freaks” — the characters who live within the Cabinet are fully-formed people with hopes and dreams and personality. In fact, the one person sort of lacking in that category was Kitty Hayward, the girl who finds refuge among the Unusuals when her mother disappears suddenly. But she changes and grows throughout the story, as she witnesses what life is like for people who aren’t like her.

My biggest complaint about this one is that it wasn’t longer!