Matthews (Scorpio's Child) again offers a resonant novel exploring a youngster's immense loss and gradual healing. As the tale opens in 1937, the 13-year-old narrator, LaMarr, is on a bus heading to South Carolina. "I was scared—so deep down inside that it felt like my bones were crumbling," she says, then explains that several days earlier the plane carrying her dancer mother and her mother's stunt-pilot beau disappeared over the ocean. Settling into the home of her mother's warm, big-hearted brother and his cool, crusty wife, LaMarr bottles up her loneliness and fright, certain that a letter from her mother will arrive any day. The girl strikes up a saving friendship with a wise elderly man—a writer of pulp westerns—who alone recognizes the depth of her sorrow. Together, the two track the around-the-world flight of LaMarr's idol Amelia Earhart on a map tacked to the wall. The disappearance of her
plane triggers a dramatic catharsis: "Something wild and dark rose up inside me, like a tornado... and whatever it was holding me together gave way." A mystical element involving angels seems underdeveloped and incompletely integrated. However, the author tightly weaves together the tale's remaining threads to create an eloquent and affecting work. Ages 10-14. (Nov.)
