"The Kaleidoscope Sisters is one of the most absorbing novels I have read in a long time. Stephens masterfully chips away at Quinn’s exterior, revealing a girl who is sometimes humorous, at times heartbreaking, and always authentic. This is a book you won’t want to put down.
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09/01/2018
Gr 7 Up—When Riley was born, Quinn was only eight years old and couldn't even say the word stenosis let alone fully grasp what it would mean to have a sister with this disease. Although the doctors didn't expect Riley to live very long, she beat the odds and lived for seven years, becoming a sister that Quinn loved dearly and a cherished daughter to their mother Jane. During a moment of anguish and despair over Riley's failing health, Quinn stumbles across a portal to a strange and mysterious world. There, she finds Aimee and Meelie, travelers who also discovered the portal by accident. They go on an adventure in this place full of luminescent creatures and two moons to help Quinn find a heart flower that can heal her sister. Before returning home, Quinn discovers that there is a price to pay for taking a heart flower. Mainly told from the perspectives of Riley, Quinn, and their mother, this novel is a heartrending story of the deep love of family and the hardships of terminal disease and loss. In his debut, Stevens has created a touching novel that is Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper mixed with Michael Ende's The Neverending Story or Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. VERDICT A unique story for teens who enjoy fantasy and tragedy. Give this to fans of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak or If I Stay by Gayle Forman—Ellen Fitzgerald, Naperville Public Library, IL
"A butterfly garden is a gateway to a whimsical world full of the light of courage and the hopes of the human heart. Written with the sweet clarity of a child’s eye and the depth of life’s toughest challenges, Ronnie K. Stephens’s The Kaleidoscope Sisters is adorned with an array of unforgettable characters in a realm touched by magic and wonder."
"Like a cocoon, The Kaleidoscope Sisters unfolds its magic slowly, then soars like the butterflies that Riley so loves. Ronnie K. Stephens has given us a book of love and loss and family, but, more importantly, in these times we are living, he has gifted us a much-needed book of selflessness and strong female characters.
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The Kaleidoscope Sisters is one of the most absorbing novels I have read in a long time. Stephens masterfully chips away at Quinn’s exterior, revealing a girl who is sometimes humorous, at times heartbreaking, and always authentic. This is a book you won’t want to put down.”
—Cecilia Galante, author of The World from Up Here
“A butterfly garden is a gateway to a whimsical world full of the light of courage and the hopes of the human heart. Written with the sweet clarity of a child’s eye and the depth of life’s toughest challenges, Ronnie K. Stephens’s The Kaleidoscope Sisters is adorned with an array of unforgettable characters in a realm touched by magic and wonder.”
—Morowa Yejidé, author of Time of the Locust
“Like a cocoon, The Kaleidoscope Sisters unfolds its magic slowly, then soars like the butterflies that Riley so loves. Ronnie K. Stephens has given us a book of love and loss and family, but, more importantly, in these times we are living, he has gifted us a much-needed book of selflessness and strong female characters.”
—Jeff Talarigo, author of In the Cemetery of the Orange Trees
