Kim Ventrella

I think this book should qualify as this generation's Bridge to Terabithia. It deals with a weighty subject in a light hearted way that keeps the reader engaged and turning pages til the end. As an adult reader the foreshadowing was slapping you in the face, but I think it’s subtle enough that it will be a surprise to many kids. This would fall in with books like I Kill Giants and A Monster Calls, except instead of a destructive kid, this has a kid who is all heart and just wants his show more sister to get well, his mom to be happy, and his dad to come back home.

A skeleton has started growing in Stanley’s backyard. His sister and all his friends can see it, but his caretaker Francine can see it. But no other adults can. Stanley really wants a way to make his father notice him and his sister after moving away, and he figures if he wins this big competition with pictures of the skeleton, then his dad would have to come home for sure.

I hate the dad. I hate the dad, who is never there for the entire book. But I love the rest of that cast. Mom tries her best and has such a burden. Sister Miren is so happy and carefree under dire circumstances. Then there is Francine who is like a grandmother indulging the kids, but making them use their heads and their hearts when they need to.

I am completely in love with this book and wish I had not held on to the galley for so long before reading it. I also love the original cover. I hate the new paperback cover.

This book is a big ol’ tear jerker, and worth every tear. Given enough time, and enough exposure I feel this book could become a classic akin to books previously mentioned. So give this book a chance. Why it may make the tears flow, it will leave the reader with a warm and happy feeling of love and friendship.

I think this book should qualify as this generation's Bridge to Terabithia. It deals with a weighty subject in a light hearted way that keeps the reader engaged and turning pages til the end. As an adult reader the foreshadowing was slapping you in the face, but I think it’s subtle enough that it will be a surprise to many kids. This would fall in with books like I Kill Giants and A Monster Calls, except instead of a destructive kid, this has a kid who is all heart and just wants his sister to get well, his mom to be happy, and his dad to come back home.

A skeleton has started growing in Stanley’s backyard. His sister and all his friends can see it, but his caretaker Francine can see it. But no other adults can. Stanley really wants a way to make his father notice him and his sister after moving away, and he figures if he wins this big competition with pictures of the skeleton, then his dad would have to come home for sure.

I hate the dad. I hate the dad, who is never there for the entire book. But I love the rest of that cast. Mom tries her best and has such a burden. Sister Miren is so happy and carefree under dire circumstances. Then there is Francine who is like a grandmother indulging the kids, but making them use their heads and their hearts when they need to.

I am completely in love with this book and wish I had not held on to the galley for so long before reading it. I also love the original cover. I hate the new paperback cover.

This book is a big ol’ tear jerker, and worth every tear. Given enough time, and enough exposure I feel this book could become a classic akin to books previously mentioned. So give this book a chance. Why it may make the tears flow, it will leave the reader with a warm and happy feeling of love and friendship.

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I think this just wasn't my cup of tea. Some of the language felt forced or maybe just foreign to me with the southern flare. It took me awhile to figure out what some of the repeated phrases meant, and it also felt like I should already understand them. That aside, the characters did have depth and their interactions rang true.

Sam's father has passed away and he must leave his home to live with his Aunt that he hasn't seen in years. There is a reason for that which we do learn. After the show more first day in his new school Sam discovers a way that he can still interact with his father, but we quickly learn that it is temporary, which Sam refuses to believe. Would recommend for someone interested in stories of traveling through grief or large fans of stories with a heavy southern leaning.

**Will note that I listened on audio, and the accent was just not my favorite, but the narrator did have talent! show less

When Sam’s dad dies, he has to leave everything he cared about - his dad, their boat and their home on the bayou - to move in with an aunt he hasn’t seen in years. But through a secret door in a tree, he finds a way to spend afternoons with his dad again. Even if that means ditching the cute purple-haired girl who wants to work on a science fair project with him. But ultimately, he’ll have to choose between trying to stay with his dad and a new life that’s starting to feel like home. show more

Somehow simultaneously both heartwarming and creepy, this book tugs on your heartstrings! You may cry, but in a good way. The author did a great job pulling you into Sam’s world and filling it with a cast of quirky characters you won’t want to leave behind!

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC. show less

As an adult, I still love to read books aimed for young kids; brilliant writing does not have an age!

That being said, it seems like a lot of children's authors do not grasp that kids understand quite a lot and that they shouldn't be underestimated. This book was a hot mess, which is especially sad because I thought it had a lot of potential. My gripe was basically with everything but the idea. Everything else, like the characters, pacing, execution? So disappointing. Though this book is show more aimed at 10-12 year-olds, the topic of the book clashed with the simplistic, dumbed-down writing style. Kids understand death, and talking to them about it without respecting that they're perceptive just like an adult is baffling.

The Writing Style and Set-up
Plenty of books for younger readers are beautifully-written without sacrificing clarity or using hand-holding. Guess what this book does? It felt like the worst hand-holding book I've read this year so far! What I mean by that is that everything is either incredibly spelled out, or omitted because the author clearly thinks that young readers are incapable of handling realistic details. Example? Sure, why not? The process of Miren getting sick is laughable. All we know in the beginning is that she coughs a lot, and that sometimes she seems skinny in her pajamas. When she does get sick, it's always rides to the emergency room. Um, what!? What about doctor check-ups!? If she was sick enough to be on an oxygen tank, there is no way that doctors wouldn't carefully monitor her condition. I swear, the author used the emergency room rides to build up unnecessary drama. But then when we get to the last 3/4 of this book, we never find out what's wrong with Miren besides 'vague implication of cancer'. If the author wanted to write about a sudden death of a child, that's fine. But cancer is not something that pops up and claims a life in the span of a month. There are plenty of health plot devices that would do that! What about an undiagnosed birth defect? Or literally anything else? It's not particularly hard to write a topic-sensitive book to kids, but the author has to be imaginative about it.

The pacing is also terrible in this book. In my opinion, the book is bogged down with the National Geographic contest plot-line. It goes nowhere and has almost no impact to the main plot. In fact, I would say it takes time away from developing the progression of Miren's condition and how Stanly copes with it. The fact that the photos couldn't get developed, yet Stanly kept trying to the point of insanity was annoying. I consider it a waste of this book's time.

Don't even get me started about the tone dissonance in this book. Are we supposed to think of Princy as scary or not?? The author sometimes does cute things, like making Princy entertain Miren, but then gives the skeleton a scythe and a hood?? In what world does a little kid trust a looming hooded figure? I think that a better way to handle this would have been to make Princy mostly nice and approachable, but creepy in subtle ways, not 'Stanly chasing him at night' creepy! The little corner page animated skeleton animation conflicted me even more. Here, the skeleton was cute and dancing, but the book skeleton was much creepier. One instance of making shadow puppets does not a friendly skeleton make. I can see what the author was aiming for, but to me, the execution fell through.

The Characters
Again, another aspect of the book where the initial idea is good, but the execution falls through. Stanly as a main character is fine; he is relatable enough to be a protagonist and has his own interests and feelings to constitute at least a semblance of personality. Miren is... well, flawed as a little sister, but one-dimensional. She is written fine as an 8 year-old. The problem is the adults. Ms. Francine is alright, but errs too close to the 'kooky foreigner' type for my tastes. She's more like Ms. Exposition, conveniently hand-holding the reader when the plot supposedly gets too complicated.

The mom is a terrible mom and all that we see as readers is her being awful to Stanly. Where is their bonding time to show us how much they love each other?? I had an issue that she never talks like an adult and that her dialogue reads as a kid writing about an adult. Look, it's okay to write an adult as an adult through a kid's perspective, but that doesn't mean turning them into a kid's stereotype of how an adult acts. Yes, parents of sick children do act irrational and people do not handle grief well, but Stanly's mom basically turns into a caricature of a grieving mother. For all intents and purposes, she's insane. Her behavior can be summed up into "Stanly is at fault for everything, it is time to lash out and not handle things like a proper adult". Yeah, a grieving person can be written as irrational, but Stanly's mom basically throws away her responsibilities and nobody helps her grow as a fully-developed character in her own right. Again, this was a missed opportunity to really help kids understand how adults handle grief, as well.

The dad is also no better and is basically a throw-away plot, too. He never acts like an actual adult with realistic problems and instead functions as another 'tear-jerker element' to the story. Like I keep repeating, it's fine to have tropes like this in a story, but handle them better and with respect to your young readers! I usually don't like to name-drop, but read 'I, Lorelei' for a book that shows how to handle adults that have issues of their own. In that book, adult issues are present, but they are not always elaborated on, and kids are allowed to make up their own opinions on what's happening. I guess what I'm trying to say is: show, don't tell! Context is key!

My last point is that I hated how all that the characters ate was junk food. And the brand-name dropping was super stupid. This is my own pet peeve, but I hate when authors encourage bad eating habits by trying to be 'relatable' to kids and promoting bad diets. Stanly and Miren are constantly drinking diet soda and eating fast food. May I remind you that in America, 13.7 million kids and teens are affected by childhood obesity? And guess which social class this statistic affects the most, the one who is described in this book? yeah, the book also mentions eating borscht, but none of the characters like it much. Wow, way to promote healthy eating habits in kids... show less