The Painting

by Charis Cotter

Overview

A haunting, beautiful middle-grade novel about fractured relationships, loss, ghosts, friendship and art.

Annie and her mother don't see eye to eye. When Annie finds a painting of a lonely lighthouse in their home, she is immediately drawn to it--and her mother wishes it would stay banished in the attic. To her, art has no interest, but Annie loves drawing and painting.

When Annie's mother slips into a coma following a car accident, strange things begin to happen to Annie. She finds herself falling into the painting and meeting Claire, a girl her own age living at the lighthouse. Claire's mother Maisie is the artist behind the painting, and like Annie, Claire's relationship with her mother is fraught. Annie thinks she can help them find their way back to each other, and in so doing, help mend her relationship with her own mother.

But who IS Claire? Why can Annie travel through the painting? And can Annie help her mother wake up from her coma?

The Painting is a touching, evocative story with a hint of mystery and suspense to keep readers hooked.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101918883
Publisher:	Tundra
Publication date:	09/19/2017
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	6 MB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

CHARIS COTTER grew up beside a cemetery and has been living with ghosts ever since. She studied English in university and went to drama school in London, England. Her spooky, suspenseful novel, The Swallow: A Ghost Story, was nominated for many awards and received countless honors. Her picture book, The Ferryland Visitor: A mysterious tale, is based on a true ghost story experienced by Newfoundland artist Gerald L. Squires and his family when they lived at an abandoned lighthouse in the 1970s. Charis has worked extensively in schools and libraries from coast to coast, using drama and storytelling to bring her books to life. Her performances of Newfoundland ghost stories have thrilled audiences of all ages, from Florida to Vancouver Island. She lives at the end of a road beside the ocean, in one of the most haunted parts of Newfoundland.

Read an Excerpt

CLAIRE
I was cold. I struggled up through a dream of long white corridors and breaking glass into my freezing bedroom, which was filled with the white light of the full moon. An icy Atlantic breeze inched its way through the gaps in the window frame and slithered around my bed.
I jumped up, ran to the trunk in the corner and hauled out a red woolen blanket. As I turned to get back in bed, the moon pulled at me, and I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and sat down in the big stuffed armchair. The glowing disc of the moon spilled light in a wide path across the water.
The beacon from the lighthouse flashed over the silver sea, a steady rhythm, every five seconds. Like a heartbeat. Like a drum.
“Annie,” I whispered. “Where are you?”

ANNIE
The first time I had the dream was the night of Mom’s accident. The house was quiet. A stillness spread out from my parents’ room.
I lay there for a long time, listening. The curtains were open and a full, silvery moon shone in the window, as bright as a streetlight. Its beam fell on the painting of a Newfoundland lighthouse opposite my bed. It looked different than it did in daylight, transformed by the moonlight into black and white, with sharper outlines and deeper shadows.
A white seabird with black-tipped wings swooped across the dark clouds—I blinked. For just a second I thought I had actually seen the bird moving across the painted surface. I sat up. As I watched, another bird leaped forward and dived into the silver ocean with a splash.
“Annie!” called a faraway voice. I scrambled out of bed.
“Annie!” called the voice again. There was something familiar about it, but it wasn’t coming from downstairs, nor from my parents’ bedroom down the hall. I turned and stared at the painting. I took a step toward it. Now I could see more details: patches of wildflowers by the side of the road leading to the lighthouse, a few sheep grazing on the hill, lights glowing behind the windows of the keeper’s house.
Suddenly the blades of grass in the foreground trembled. A wave passed through the meadow grasses. Then another. I felt a gust of wind on my face, and a wild, unfamiliar smell filled the room. I could taste salt on my lips and I could hear the seabirds crying as they swooped across the sky.
“Annie!” cried the voice again. “Come!”
I took a step forward.
Then I was inside the painting, standing on the road to the lighthouse, with a surprised sheep raising its head to stare at me and the dark ocean stretching away as far as I could see.

Editorial Reviews

One of CCBC’S Best Books for Kids & Teens (2018)

"[A] cleverly constructed, compellingly paced mystery that's part time-slip story, part ghost story, part meditation on the power of dreaming. . . . Full of emotional truth and connection." —Kirkus Reviews

“3/4… [T]he mounting tension between Claire and Maisie is painfully believable… Highly recommended.” —CM Magazine

"Readers will connect with the characters and fall into the storyline with its focus on artists, loss, and family relationships... Recommended." —School Library Connection

"Moody and atmospheric... the story unfolds at exactly the right pace and is a delicately nuanced tale of secrets, shadows of the past, family ties, heartache and healing." —Atlantic Books Today

From the Publisher

09/01/2017
Gr 5–8—A time-traveling twist is used to explore mother-daughter relationships and family secrets. Annie Jarvis doesn't understand her mother. Annie lives for art and doesn't like school, while her mother has always been studious and serious. A painting Annie finds in the attic and her mother's lapse into a coma after a car accident set the scene for discovery. Quotes from Alice in Wonderland open each section of this novel. Instead of Alice's rabbit hole, Annie from Toronto falls into paintings from the past by the famous Newfoundland artist Maisie King soon after her mother's accident. While in the paintings, Annie meets Claire, a girl mourning the death of her younger sister, coincidentally (or not) named Annie. Claire believes Annie is the ghost of her deceased sibling. Claire blames herself for her sister's death and thinks her mother blames her as well. Readers will intentionally be ahead of the plot, surmising that Claire must be Annie's mother, Cathleen, before it is disclosed. Once Annie discovers that Maisie King is her grandmother and that little Annie's death has torn the family apart, she believes repairing her mother and grandmother's relationship is the key to her mother's recovery. Claire and Annie alternate narrating chapters, revealing the family saga in the past and present and ultimately resulting in a happy ending. VERDICT A sweet family relationship tale with a paranormal twist. Recommended for additional purchase in large collections, especially where there is local or regional interest.—Cindy Wall, Southington Library & Museum, CT

School Library Journal

2017-07-17
The painting of a Newfoundland lighthouse that Annie finds in her attic becomes a portal to the place itself and the lonely girl who lives there. Claire, 12, white, a serious student and avid reader, lives with her mother, Maisie, a fiercely self-sufficient painter, in an old lighthouse on the coast of Newfoundland. Claire longs to move back to their home in St. John's, where her younger sister died. Annie, also 12, white, and a gifted artist, lives in Toronto with her accomplished parents. The night her mother is injured in a car accident Annie finds herself falling into the real world of the lighthouse, where Claire immediately recognizes her as an older version of her sister, Annie. Claire blames herself for young Annie's death and believes that her mother does, too. Alternating subchapters in Claire's and Annie's voices weave a cleverly constructed, compellingly paced mystery that's part time-slip story, part ghost story, part meditation on the power of dreaming. Epigraphs drawn from Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland about the nature of dreams and reality preface each of the nine chapters. As Annie begins to realize who she and Claire might be to each other, Claire and Maisie clash over a series of portraits imagining the young Annie growing older. Full of emotional truth and connection. (Fantasy. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews