WALK SOFTLY, RACHEL

“I used to have a brother,” begins Rachel, 14, as she tells her story and that of her dead older brother, having found his journal. The family has not recovered from Jake’s death seven years ago; Rachel suppresses her aches, her chief surgeon father covers up with jokes, and her judge mother escapes to her gardening. Reading Jake’s journal is the only way Rachel can get to know him and eventually say goodbye. Jake’s emotions are those of a tormented teen, raw, questioning why he isn’t perfect like his parents, and thinking about death. Eerily, Jake’s thoughts echo things in Rachel’s life and weave into her memories. The more intense the entry, the more Rachel focuses on life, not death. A town Bread Festival and a new, but troubled friend play roles in the impending tragic discovery. Pensive, emotionally layered, filled with private grief, Rachel’s obsession with Jake becomes her release, understanding that hearts and spirits mend like broken bones, that you can’t run away from the past, and that forgiving means letting go. Absorbing, powerful, remarkable. (Fiction. 11-15)