Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

Hazel has a wonderful imagination that she shares with her neighbor, Jack. They are best of friends until a tiny, magical bit of mirror falls from the clouds into Jack's eye. He immediately changes and starts treating Hazel rudely. One day, Jack heads to the sledding hill after school and ends up leaving into the forest with a white witch. Since he goes willingly, there is no escaping the witch. Hazel learns what happened a few days later and journeys into the forest to save her friend. The people she finds cannot be trusted, and they all tell her to leave; the witch cannot be beaten. A boy finally tells her to follow the cold, but what will she do once she finds Jack?

This book was a finalist for a Cybils award and told a tale of friendship. The setting for the first half of it was realistic but set the table the table for the setting in the magical forest. The characters in the forest added some drama as they seemed nice but had evil intentions. It was unusual when a boy told Hazel to trust the fearsome wolves, but that only added to the drama. The plot told an entertaining story and stressed a theme of not giving up hope in others.