When Sea Becomes Sky

December 15, 2022
A summer mystery on their island home illuminates the special bond between siblings. Bex and Davey live on Pelican Island, where a drought is lowering the water in the salt marsh. When a formerly submerged statue appears, the siblings, who are cued White, search for its story with growing excitement. The statue could be a way to stop developers from destroying their beloved marshlands with a new bridge, after all. This layered mystery is crafted with an eye on the statue and its heart focused on Bex as she navigates this special summer when she is in charge of her 9-year-old brother. Lately Davey doesn't speak to anyone but her, and he speaks most freely when they are at The Thumb, their special place on a far corner of their island. The two race to uncover information about the sculptor without adult interference, culminating in a surreptitious ferry ride to an art museum on the mainland. McDunn has created strong supporting characters, like Bex's former best friend, who speak truth and demonstrate kindness. The rainless skies stand for suppressed emotions, with the otters, crabs, and buzzing insects creating a timeless, swampy backdrop. The pages shine with love, loss, and a sense of place; autobiographical ties to the story are explained in the author's note. Atmospheric illustrations help bring to life the island setting. A mystery that, as it is uncovered, becomes something much more profound. (Fiction. 8-12)

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 9, 2023
An uneasy vibe permeates this expansive mystery starring two closely bonded siblings. Contentious 11-year-old aspiring writer Bex and her quiet, easygoing nine-year-old brother Davey, who cue as white, live on Pelican Island off the Carolina coast, and spend freewheeling days in their favorite marsh spot. When a pervasive drought lowers the water level, and Bex notices a human-size metal statue embedded in the mud, she believes that the find could detour the building of a planned bridge to the island, which is currently only accessible by ferry. The bridge promises to bring more tourists to the remote island, improving the local economy, but it’s also likely to alter the ecosystem and threaten the kids’ father’s job as ferry captain. Davey tends not to speak around others, but he chats regularly with Bex as they work to solve the art mystery. Bex, meanwhile, studiously avoids “used-to-be friend” Millie Ochoa-Chen, who’s Taiwanese and Mexican American. Positing that “writers must tell the truth thoroughly, constantly, and recklessly,” McDunn (Honestly Elliott) uses the island’s drought to imbue the story with an anxious feeling as Bex strives to prolong the waning summer. An author’s note details the book’s personal origins. Ages 8–11. Agent: Marietta Zacker, Gallt & Zacker Literary.

Starred review from January 1, 2023
Grades 5-7 *Starred Review* It's June in coastal North Carolina, and 11-year-old Bex wants nothing more than to spend her summer exploring the salt marshes in her rowboat with her younger brother, Davey, who's "a bit of a genius." He has become uncommonly quiet over the past year. Meanwhile Bex, who aims to be a writer, feels that she needs his encouragement to keep trying. Currently, she's in a creative dry spell. Her family lives on an island in a region where a drought is gradually lowering the water level in the marsh. Spotting a metallic hand reaching upwards from the water's surface, Bex discovers a larger-than-life statue mostly submerged. Bex decides to find the sculptor and discover why this artwork was hidden in the marsh. McDunn, whose middle-grade novels include The Queen Bee and Me (2020) and Honestly Elliott (2022), creates memorable characters within a distinctive setting. Written with immediacy and grace, Bex's first-person narrative increasingly focuses on the mystery and her determination to solve it with Davey's help, until a meeting with the sculptor forces this unreliable narrator to reveal the central truth that she's been hiding all along. It's a pivotal moment for Bex and a wrenching one for readers of this quiet, yet fully engaging novel.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 1, 2023
Bex dreams of becoming a writer, and usually the words flow from her pencil. But not this summer; now she has more erasures than words. Her younger brother, Davey, gives Bex some advice: "Writers must tell the truth thoroughly, constantly, and recklessly. Do that and the words will come." It's advice Bex appears to follow as she describes how she and Davey find a mysterious statue near their home in the North Carolina salt marsh. For years, it had been covered by a river (a body of water Davey will not enter but dubs the River Sticks), but it is now increasingly visible as the water recedes during a serious drought. Bex decides on the perfect summer plan: the two of them will discover the statue's provenance. Their exclusivity makes sense, as Davey appears to be selectively mute around everyone but Bex and she's had a falling-out with her best friend. However, a sudden revelation midway through the novel shatters that presumed truth-telling. McDunn (Honestly Elliott, rev. 3/22) has written a story that the character of Davey would want to read: "This book starts happy, gets sad, and then at the end, it's happy and sad mixed up together. That's what makes it special, that it has both."

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