A "Step" Up: The Steps by Rachel Cohn

If you thing it's hard keeping track of all the Steps in my life, try being me.

The Steps are the bazillion stepbrothers, stepsisters, and half siblings my parents keep laying on me.

From Cinderella to the Brady Bunch, learning to live with step-parents and step-siblings has been hard for kids, and life for Annabel Whoopi Schubert is no different.

Annabel is just hoping for a great Christmas break in New York, shopping and skating at Rockefeller Plaza with her B.F. Justine, but everything turns upside down when she learns that her mom Angelina, plus her Grandma Bubbe, with whom they live, agree that what she needs is to visit her dad and step-family in Sydney,--the one in Australia! Anabel thinks their sudden decision has something to do with Angelina's new romance with Harvey, whose dorky son "Wheaties" is in Annabel's class at school.

Wannabe designer Annabel loves Sydney, with its trendy fashions and cool little shops, but she can't help feeling some jealousy when her same-age stepsister Lucy and little brother Angus call her father "Dad," and she painfully realizes that her dad Jack is happy and settled in Sydney and will never move back to New York. Although she loves holding her baby half-sister Beatrice, her step-mother Penny seems to be trying to keep her from feeling like a member of the family. While she has to admit that Lucy seems like a fun girl, she notices that Lucy, too, is angry over being forced to entertain her rather than visiting her Granny Nell in Melbourne as she always does at Christmas.

Things come to a head on New Year's Eve, when both girls feel so put-upon that they decide to get even with Jack and Penny, sneaking out and taking the train to Grandma Nell's in Melbourne anyway. Before they show up for the expected showdown at Nell's, Lucy stops to hang out with her old school friends a bit, and Annabel finds herself smitten with Lucy's ex-step-brother Ben, whom they meet in the park.

Grandma Nell draws out the girls' stories and firmly but sympathetically assigns them the penance of cleaning out her garage while she makes dinner for her former son-in-law and, much to Annabel's delight, his son Ben. When Grandma Nell flies back to Sydney with the repentent Lucy and Annabel, they find a crowd of concerned and disgruntled family members, including Bubbe and Angelina, as well as her now official fiance' Harvey and Annabel's now future step-brother Wheaties. Having shared an amazing adventure, Lucy and Annabel have finally become friends, and former exes Jack and Angelina make an effort to put their anger and hurt behind them.

In The Steps Rachel Cohn doesn't gloss over the real pain and loss for children involved in divorce and remarriage, but she also manages a laugh a page as Annabel attempts to deal with a trans-hemispheric family and a convoluted family tree of step-relatives. Annabel (nicknamed "Whoops" by her almost boyfriend Ben) finds that there's some bitter, but also some sweet, in her blended family.