The Runaway Princess, by Kate Coombs, reminded me of Jean Ferris's Once Upon a Marigold and Twice Upon a Marigold -- light, easy-going, and lots of fun to read. 
The runaway princess is Meg, a feisty young heroine (yes, another one -- yeah!) whose father, the king, locks in a tower for the length of a contest. The winner of this contest will get half the kingdom and her hand in marriage, but he has to slay a dragon and rid the kingdom of a witch and a group of bandits first. Kate decides that she will win the contest herself. With the help of her friends, she breaks out of the tower, finds and befriends both the dragon and the witch, but is pursued by the evil prince Vantor, who will stop at nothing to win the contest. This is a funny, lighthearted story filled with adventure and fun, and I enjoyed it very much.
The Diamond of Drury Lane, by Julia Golding, is the first of (so far) four books about Catherine (Cat) Royal, 
an orphan who lives in England in the late 1700's. She was taken in by a theater owner, Mr Sheridan, and has lived at the theater for many years. Cat is a smart, resourceful, and very appealing heroine, and I very much enjoyed reading about her adventures helping her friends and outsmarting her enemies. The mystery of the diamond of the title has a clever and surprising conclusion. I look forward to reading the other three books!
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly, takes place in Texas in 1899. Eleven-year-old Calpurnia,
who goes by Callie Vee, would much prefer to spend her time with her naturalist grandfather, collecting specimens, investigating the natural world, and learning about science. Her mother wants her to grow up to be a proper lady, though, so she often has to practice the piano or learn domestic skills such as knitting and cooking. Callie's attempts to avoid these odious tasks are the source of much humor in the story. Callie Vee is a funny, smart, and spunky young heroine, and I quickly grew to care very much about her and her family. I will recommend this book often to both boys and girls.
Strawberry Girl, by Lois Lenski, has been on my bookshelf for years, but I had never read it. Since it won the Newbery Medal in 1946,
I decided to give it a try. I found the story mildly interesting. Birdie Boyer, the main character, lives in a small back-woods type of community in Florida in the early 20th century. Her family is new to the area. Much of the plot involves conflict between the Boyer family and their neighbors, the Slaters, who have lived there a long time. The Slaters own cattle and allow them to roam free; the Boyers are farmers and need to protect their crops. The Slaters do not feed their cows, relying instead on the cows' ability to find their own food. Predictably, the cows end up taking a fancy to the Boyers' crops, and Mr. Boyer fences in his property, cutting off the cows' access to their main water source.
In the book's foreword, Lensky explains that Strawberry Girl is part of a series of books she has written about little-known regions of the U.S., and that she has written the characters' conversation in their dialect. Readers see, for example:
"Did your Pa git paid for the steer?" asked Birdie.
"Not yet. He done tole Ma and Gus and Joe and me what he's gonna git for it and he tole us what we might could buy." (p. 59)
I didn't find the dialect difficult or distracting, and I agree with Lenski that it helped me to better understand the world these characters inhabit. Still, I think some people might see it as condescending, just as people object to dialect in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I think both Lenski and Twain saw their use of dialect as descriptive, though, rather than judgmental.
Lenski writes that her purpose was to promote understanding and acceptance of these local habits and differences. She also says that she used real stories from the region but had to soften them so they would still be appropriate for a young audience. The conflicts that arose between the Boyers' and Slaters' real-life counterparts may very well have resulted in much violence and heartache. Strawberry Girl succeeds in presenting the stress and anxiety the conflict causes both adults and children, as well as the unfortunate, even tragic, consequences of trying to settle the argument with violence. I think this is the novel's greatest strength.
Despite the unrealistic ending, where Mr. Slater reforms from a drunken, angry trouble-maker into a good Christian man, I liked the story overall. I probably will not recommend this book to young readers often, but I appreciate the historical perspective in the book, as well as the positve example of the creative problem-solving abilities of Mrs. Boyer and Mrs. Slater.
Time Quake, by Linda Buckley-Archer, is the last book in the Time Travelers trilogy. 
While reading what others have said about this book on goodreads.com, I noticed that many of them thought the ending was not very satisfying. I agree that the ending felt rushed and a little too convenient. However, overall I thought this book was exciting and fun to read. The idea in this story was that time travel was creating alternate time splinters, or alternate versions of history, to exist at the same time. The stress from this was resulting in "time quakes," which were kind of like storms where various time realities intermingled. It's kind of confusing, because how can anyone really make sense of the consequences of going back in time and changing history? I really like reading stories with a time travel element, though, and this one does not disappoint.
