Sara Nickerson

Four stars - for a YA book. Or: this is what I would have thought. Because I like books about conspiracies, and hidden truths, and Fate (capital F), and water-water-cold-and-deep. Oh, the so many layers and the tricks of memory and mind. But it gives the sense of trusting, finding family, fighting towards truth, & what you're going to sacrifice, what you won't ...
This is written and illustrated (in a comic-style) by women - hurray! - and all the elements combine. It works. It opens up show more possibilities and worlds-among-worlds, as books ought to do, as so few do outside the YA realm (goddamn it all).
-- Bought, on a whim, from Goodwill. Fate? show less

Twelve-year-old Missy McKenzie does not want things to change butTheSecretsOfBlueberries in the year after her parents’ divorce that is what is occurring. Her fourteen-year-old brother Patrick, once her main support, is changing. He is conscious of his physique and is trying to bulk up to lose that ‘stick boy’ nickname. He is interested in clothes and a girl, Shauna, he met at the McKenzie’s summer jobs picking blueberries on a local farm. Missy’s friends have outgrown the ‘3-D show more glasses without lenses’ that they made and decorated. Her father has decided to remarry. Regardless of how much she wishes, things are changing. The place she feels the most comfortable is on the blueberry farm, owned by Moose and Bev, communing with nature. However, there, too things are changing and secrets are being let out. The unexplained blood feud between Moose and his brother Lyle is consuming the imaginations of the young blueberry pickers.

The Secrets of Blueberries by Sara Nickerson is a new twist on growing up. It is difficult for a younger sibling to watch an older one venture out on his/her own. It is even harder when friends mature a little faster. It is rare that a suburban tween can experience farm life and feel bound by nature. Nickerson does a fine job of reminding readers that our food does not grow in cans and plastic wrap; there are dedicated farmers who grow these crops. Missy’s growing pains will strike chords with young female tweens and provide an enjoyable read.

The Secrets of Blueberries is a cute read. show less

Twelve year-old Margaret and her seven year-old sister live on the Washington coast with their indifferent mother, their father having drown several years before. Life is dull as Mom wakes up from her naps only to go to work and do laundry. So a sudden trip to a nearby island to see a broken down house makes Margaret suspicious and sets her, along with new friend, Tina Louise, to solving the mystery of why the family owns a house she never knew about, why is it filled with so much junk, and show more how a reclusive comic book author knows so much about her dad.

This story is sad at first, with the mother's parenting being affected by depression, and Margaret filling in much of the mothering for her little sister, but the story becomes about Margaret's determination and courage. She meets Tina Louise, a girl whose mother is a therapist and who gives Margaret such encouragement to start her adventure that Margaret hears the other girl's voice offering advice throughout, like the Cheshire Cat. Included in the story are pages of of the comic book that a local boy, Boyd, collects about his hero, Ratt, which tend to predict the future and relay the past and an editor who occasionally butts in to clarify a few points. show less

I'm not at all sure how kids' books are classified these days, but I think you'd probably call this one a middle grade novel. The dust jacket seems to indicate it's recommended for fifth graders and up, and that seems about right to me.

The story features two girls whose father drowned four years ago under circumstance their depressed mother never talks about; a crumbling, spooky mansion their mom has apparently just inherited; and a mysterious hand-drawn comic book about a half-man/half-rat show more creature and a drowned ghost.

It's well-written, in a way that doesn't talk down to its young audience, the story's interesting and odd, and the snippets of the comic that are integrated into the story are very well-drawn. I kept going back and forth a bit on whether it was entirely working for me or not, though, I think mainly because I wasn't quite expecting some of the slightly surreal aspects of it. Well, that, and I'm not really in the book's target demographic these days. I suspect I would have really liked it when I was 12.

Rating: 3.5/5, but that's from jaded adult me. I would, in fact, recommend it to kids of the appropriate age, if they like slightly weird and off-kilter stories (and aren't too afraid of rats). show less