THE GRAVEDIGGER’S COTTAGE

An old gravedigger’s cottage and its nearby beach are the setting for this mournful, slightly creepy family story. Fourteen-year-old Sylvia moves there with her 10-year-old brother, Walter, and their sad, eccentric father for a fresh start far away from the place where both Sylvia’s and Walter’s mothers died. A long string of pets died there too. Death weighs heavily on all three members of this strongly bonded family. Sylvia loves the odd cottage but Dad seems to be folding over into himself as, grief-bent, he begins manic home-improvement projects rather than going to his job. Sylvia and Walter try to boss him into not being crazy, all the while worried they’ll lose him. In a unique, deliberate voice, Sylvia resists responsibility for her father even while accepting it. A little morbid, very loving, and dubiously hopeful at the end about Dad’s mental state—and whether their newest pet might actually live. (Fiction. 10-14)