Publishers Weekly
03/25/2024
Mills (The Lost Language) centers characters navigating personal changes against a potent backdrop of tree conservation in this emotionally authentic novel. Until recently, seventh grader Zeke has been homeschooled by his idealistic vegan parents, who don’t allow him anything “normal,” such as a cellphone, video games, or television. Indiana newcomer Sonnet, also in seventh grade, arrives from Colorado with her poet mother and lively, imaginative five-year-old sister to live with her widowed grandfather. Gramps is struggling without his soulmate, to whom he proposed in the apple orchard he had to sell, which became the subdivision where Zeke lives. Only one aging apple tree—the focal point of past events and of the narrative’s well-constructed momentum—remains. When Zeke and Sonnet interview Gramps for an oral history project, Zeke inadvertently derails Sonnet’s mission to keep Gramps’s grief at bay, and unearths a buried family tragedy. Meanwhile, Sonnet’s participation in the school’s Green Club threatens to reveal Zeke’s “weirdo” father’s environmental activism. Moving, interspersed poems, though extraneous to the plot, pay homage to a motif of trees’ capacity to feel. All characters read as white. Ages 9–12. (June)
From the Publisher
★ "A touching homage to the healing of old wounds and family relationships."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
"An emotionally authentic novel."—Publishers Weekly
"Sharing narration, Sonnet and Zeke have compellingly distinct voices, and their emotions—set roiling by frustration, embarrassment, and anger—are believably conveyed and palpably felt."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
"Mills' imaginative story, amusing details, and true-to-life portrayals of characters and their emotions light up this enjoyable chapter book."—Booklist
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2024-03-23
Two tweens and an old apple tree uncover a family secret.
Sonnet and her younger sister, Villanelle, move with their single mother from Colorado to live with their maternal grandfather in Indiana. Anderson Granger is struggling to process his wife’s recent death and is showing worrying signs of forgetfulness. Twelve-year-old Sonnet always wondered why they rarely visited Gramps and Nana, but Mom avoided answering her questions. Meanwhile, neighbor boy Zeke Morrison feels disconnected from his environmental journalist father. Zeke’s vegan family eschews technology, which he finds frustrating. After years of home schooling, Zeke just wants to fit in at the local middle school. Both Sonnet and Zeke choose Anderson Granger as the subject of their seventh grade oral history project (much to Sonnet’s annoyance). Initially unwilling partners, they grow closer as they work together, and their interviews reveal the secret behind Sonnet’s mom’s family estrangement. The mystery in this deftly characterized novel unravels from three different points of view—those of Sonnet, Zeke, and an old apple tree that witnessed the whole story. The personified apple tree, the last one standing in the orchard, faithfully interprets the family’s story in moving poems that are interspersed throughout the novel. The tree’s relationship with the family opens Zeke’s eyes to the deep connection between humans and the natural world, helping to heal his relationship with his father. Main characters are coded white.
A touching homage to the healing of old wounds and family relationships. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-13)
