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Alice Hoffman |
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Simon & Schuster |
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9781471124211 |
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March 2015 |
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paperback |
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There was a period when books such as this – books by the likes of Joan Bauer and Sharon Creech for example – were more plentiful than they are today. Which possibly explains why I savoured this short, compact and so perfectly and beautifully written novel as if I were eating a cake or a sweet that reminded me of a time when such deliciousness was more commonplace. Set in the Massachusetts countryside around Boston, it is a contemporary novel not a historical one, but is written in such a way that should Nathaniel Hawthorne unexpectedly time-travel into our own era, this is a book he might comfortably be able to read without too much disorientation.
Hoffman handles the atmosphere and mystery with great skill and conjures up the rural, smalltown Sidwell (a place known for its pink apples) with both cinematic, picturesqueness and legend-like magic realism. I can’t recommend this book highly enough, for readers aged 10 and over. It is going to become our new “What are we telling everyone they should read?” title.
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