Sheila O'Connor (1)

Things I liked:

1. The suspense of why Raine and her mother go to Sparrow Road for the summer. As I've said before, with everyday life fiction like this, it helps a lot to have some kind of mystery driving the plot and this really worked. Of course, the mystery is solved halfway through, but then you can kind of coast on the strength of the characters and relationships.

2. Raine's development as a writer. The way she asks herself questions like "What was and what will be?' and creates a character, Lyman, that's sort of like an imaginary friend. This book could really inspire kids to write and create art.

3. The writing was very solid. Pretty without being flowery. Raine had a distinct voice.

4. The meditations on being on orphan and what an orphanage is like. There are so many orphans in kid lit and I thought this book offered a very down-to-earth, sad, grounded look at something that, weirdly, can be kind of glamorized in fantasy novels.

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