A gentle but uneven story of healing in an idyllic setting.
Since catching Covid-19 two months ago, 12-year-old violinist Ivy Presnell has developed long Covid.
When her doctor advises a change of scenery, Ivy and her mother head to the Everly House, the bed-and-breakfast in the Blue Ridge Mountains run by her Uncle Cam and his husband, Steve. There, Ivy discovers that the house was once a tuberculosis sanatorium. A spirited girl named Jessie, the hero of Hitchcock’s The Ballad of Jessie Pearl (2013), was one of the sanatorium patients in the 1920s. In Ivy’s dreams, the two girls connect. Jessie’s ghostly presence shares the story of her life, while Ivy adjusts to being ill and no longer able to do many things she enjoys. She discovers the pleasures of a slower pace, learns the dulcimer, writes lyrics, and endeavors to discover all she can about Jessie. Hitchcock has written a love letter to the Asheville area: Ivy’s summer home is filled with culture and vitality, from the beauty of nature to folk music and the legacy of strong women. The girls’ connection across time via their shared struggles with chronic illness is intriguing, but Ivy’s experience with long Covid at times feels superficial and didactic. Her stress over her parents’ difficult marriage and her traveling musician father’s frequent absences are more strongly portrayed. The main characters are cued white. Some background characters of color are less well-developed and unfortunately evoke stereotypes.
A gentle but uneven story of healing in an idyllic setting. (discussion questions, author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9798765670828
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when...
Two sisters make an unauthorized expedition to their former hometown and in the process bring together the two parts of their divided family.
Dooley packs plenty of emotion into this eventful road trip, which takes place over the course of less than 24 hours. Twelve-year-old Ophelia, nicknamed Fella, and her 16-year-old sister, Zoey Grace, aka Zany, are the daughters of a lesbian couple, Shannon and Lacy, who could not legally marry. The two white girls squabble and share memories as they travel from West Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina, where Zany is determined to scatter Mama Lacy’s ashes in accordance with her wishes. The year is 2004, before the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and the girls have been separated by hostile, antediluvian custodial laws. Fella’s present-tense narration paints pictures not just of the difficulties they face on the trip (a snowstorm, car trouble, and an unlikely thief among them), but also of their lives before Mama Lacy’s illness and of the ways that things have changed since then. Breathless and engaging, Fella’s distinctive voice is convincingly childlike. The conversations she has with her sister, as well as her insights about their relationship, likewise ring true. While the girls face serious issues, amusing details and the caring adults in their lives keep the tone relatively light.
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when Fella’s family figures out how to come together in a new way . (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-16504-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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