Brightwood - a review

Brightwood
by Tania Unsworth
Algonquin, 2018 (paperback)

I missed this book when it came out in hardcover in 2016, but am I glad that I finally caught up with it.

About to depart for a trip with her family, Caroline noticed that her doll's shoe had fallen off on the dock below. Not realizing that she had gone back to retrieve it, the skipper of the Everlasting pulled away from the dock.

"The photographer's picture had been made large and filled almost the whole of the front page.  There were words above it, written in thick black letters almost as big as Caroline's hand:

TRAGEDY AT SEA—FITZJOHN FAMILY LOST!
The massive explosion yesterday on board the Fitzjohn family yacht is believed to have been caused by engine failure.  There are no survivors."

But, of course, Caroline had survived. Her grandmother had picked her up from the dock and taken her home to Brightwood, the family mansion. Now many years have passed and Caroline lives alone with her daughter, Daisy.  Daisy has never passed through the gates of Brightwood. Why should she? She and her mother have everything they need at Brightwood. 

"Daisy listened as the sound of the car grew fainter and fainter and then disappeared.  She curled back under the covers and closed her eyes.  Wherever she was going, her mum would be back by eleven o'clock. She was never late."

But this time, her mum didn't come back.

Brightwood is a middle-grade thriller with a strong female protagonist and a focus on mental illness. Adventurous readers will love it!


 Read an excerpt from Brightwood here.

My copy of this book was provided by Workman Publishing

The Paper Cowboy

Levine, Kristin. 2014. The Paper Cowboy. New York: Putnam.

In the seemingly idyllic, 1950s, town of Downers Grove, Illinois, handsome and popular 12-year-old Tommy Roberts appears to be a typical kid.  He lives with his parents, older sister Mary Lou, younger sisters Pinky and Susie, and a devoted family dog. He and his older sister attend Catholic school, his father works for Western Electric, and his mother stays at home with the younger girls.

Amidst the backdrop of the Red Scare and McCarthyism, Tommy's discovery of a Communist newspaper in the town's paper drive truck, and a horrific burn accident to Mary Lou, begin a chain of events that uncovers secrets, truths, and lies in his small town populated with many Eastern European immigrants.

Perhaps the biggest lie is Tommy's own life.  Though he never gets caught, Tommy is a bully, picking on kids at school, especially Little Skinny. When he plants the Communist newspaper in a store owned by Little Skinny's immigrant father, he's gone too far - and he knows it.  Now it's time to act like his cowboy hero, The Lone Ranger, and make everything right, but where can he turn for help?  His mother is "moody" and beats him relentlessly while his father turns a blind eye. His older sister will be hospitalized for months. He has his chores and schoolwork to do, and Mary Lou's paper route, and if Mom's in a mood, he's caretaker for Pinky and Susie as well.

It's hard to understand a bully, even harder to like one, but readers will come to understand Tommy and root for redemption for him and his family.  He will find help where he least expects it.

     I couldn't tell Mrs. Glazov about the dinner party. Or planting the paper.  But maybe I could tell her about taking the candy.  Maybe that would help.  "There's this boy at school, I said slowly, "Little Skinny."
.....
     "I didn't like him.  I don't like him.  Sometimes, Eddie and I and the choirboys, we tease him."
     "Ahh," she said again.  "He laugh too?"
     I shook my head.  I knew what Mary Lou would say.  Shame on you, Tommy! Picking on that poor boy.  And now she would have scars just like him.  How would I feel if someone picked on her?
     "What did you do?" Mrs. Glazov asked, her voice soft, like a priest at confession.  It surprised me. I'd never heard her sound so gentle.
     "I took some candy from him," I admitted.
     "You stole it."
     I shrugged.
     "Ahh."
     "It's not my fault! If Mary Lou had been there, I never would have done it!"
     Mrs. Glazov laughed.  "You don't need sister.  You need conscience."
     I had the horrible feeling that she was right.  I wasn't a cowboy at all. I was an outlaw.

Author Kristin Levine gives credit to her father and many 1950s residents of Downers Grove who shared their personal stories with her for The Paper Cowboy. Armed with their honesty and openness, she has crafted an intensely personal story that accurately reflects the mores of the 1950s.  We seldom have the opportunity (or the desire) to know everything that goes on behind the doors of our neighbors' houses.  Levine opens the doors of Downers Grove to reveal alcoholism, mental illness, abuse, disease, sorrow, and loneliness. It is this stark realism that makes the conclusion so satisfying.  This is not a breezy read with a tidy and miraculous wrap-up.  It is instead, a tribute to community, to ordinary people faced with extraordinary problems, to the human ability to survive and overcome and change.

Give this book to your good readers - the ones who want a book to stay with them a while after they've finished it.


Kristin Levine is also the author of The Lions of Little Rock (2012, Putnam) which I reviewed here.

The Kneebone Boy

Potter, Ellen. 2010.  The Kneebone Boy. New York: Feiwel and Friends.

I like books that surprise me. I like books with intriguing cover art. I like quirky books. (The Death-Defying Pepper Roux, The Problem with the Puddles, to name two)

The Kneebone Boy is all three.


The Hardscrabble family is an odd one. The children Otto, Max and Lucia ("you pronounce it Lu-CHEE-a," the narrator reminds us), live with their father, Casper - an artist who makes his rather peculiar living, painting portraits of dethroned royalty. Their mother, Tess Hardscrabble, disappeared years ago under suspicious circumstances. Caspar was immediately suspected by the police; but the neighborhood children believe that Otto, the mute and eldest Hardscrabble child, murdered his mother with the scarf that he wears always around his neck. The outcast children are frequently left in the care of a neighbor with an unsightly neck boil, while their father travels the globe to immortalize down-on-their-luck princesses, sultans and baronesses.

But this trip is different. Their father has failed to make the proper arrangements and the children find themselves on an adventure - a frightening, exciting, exhilarating adventure!

All in all they were in that gorgeous state of mind in which they felt free and unafraid and sharply aware of how large and exciting the world was.
     In other words, it hadn't gotten dark outside yet.

The Kneebone Boy is narrated in the third person by one of the three Hardscrabble children, with frequent asides and commentary on the nature of storytelling and writing. The narrator prefers to keep her identity a secret, insisting that the story belongs to all of them, but it soon becomes plain which of the children is narrating the story, as she gives away a clue in the title of the very first chapter,

In which we meet the Hardscrabbles, unearth a triceratops bone, and begin to like Lucia even more.

After some trouble in London, they arrive in Snoring-by-the-Sea and take up temporary residence at their Great-Aunt Haddie's castle folly. The quite young Great-Aunt Haddie (do the math, it's possible) is an adventure unto herself, and in her curious care (which involves dungeons and peanut butter and jelly), the siblings begin to imagine that they can find their mother, discover a secret passageway through the castle folly, and rescue a sultan. Perhaps they can, or perhaps they are on a completely different adventure - one about which neither they, nor the reader, knows anything!

Though told through the lens of Lucia's mind, The Kneebone Boy displays all facets of the Hardscrabble children's personalities. Max may be a know-it-all who isn't fond of animals, but he is also a companionable and loving brother. Lucia sometimes resents Max's bossiness and feels herself to be Otto's protector, but she knows when to defer to Max's superior intellect and wonders if she may need Otto as much as Otto needs her. And though fearful of many things, she is more than capable of overcoming her fears when the need arises. Otto, who is mute and communicates with his hands, also has more to him than his description and appearance might suggest. Though speechless, Otto knows and understands more than his siblings think.

Dark and quirky, Otto and the rest of the Hardscrabble family will draw the reader into this witty and mysterious adventure with a completely unexpected and thought-provoking conclusion.

A discussion guide for The Kneebone Boy from the publisher.

Read an excerpt here.

More reviews @
Kids Lit
A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy

Share |