Written by Ali Standish. Moving from Boston to small-town Georgia after losing his best friend in a devastating accident, Ali bonds with Coralee, a girl with an outsized personality whose inclination toward colorful stories may be putting both of them in danger.
Grades 4-6 In this moving debut, a boy tries to recover from profound loss. Ethan Truitt and his family uproot their lives in Boston, after a tragic accident involving Ethan ’s best friend, Kacey, and move to Palm Knot, Georgia, to live with estranged Grandpa Ike. Ethan is ambiguous about the traumatic details, but it is clear that he suffers intense guilt. There Ethan is befriended by Coralee Jessup, an outgoing powerhouse of a girl who reminds him of Kacey. While Ethan struggles with uncomfortable home dynamics, he and Coralee find themselves in the middle of a mystery involving an abandoned house and a box of stolen jewelry. Secrets—and the damaging keeping of them—is pivotal to the story. As a hurricane bears down on the town, Ethan finds himself at the center of several painful revelations. Ethan ’s heartbreak is so evocatively conveyed that it overshadows the equally sorrowful elements of Coralee’s own story. Yet despite the traumas, this is an uplifting book that explores the way grief evolves through the power of remembrance. — Dean, Kara (Reviewed 12/1/2016) (Booklist, vol 113, number 7, p57)
