Sometimes people appear in our lives just when we need them and, just as mysteriously, disappear. That is what happens to 12-year-old Naomi Deane in Newbery medalist Sharon Creech's (Walk Two Moons) gentle coming-of-age novel, tinged with humor and magic.
A boy drops out of a tree and startles Naomi. He is a stranger to Blackbird Tree. Where did he come from and what could he mean by his cryptic remark, "Don't take the gold"? And, Naomi wonders, how did he manage to "[infiltrate] my brain like a virus?" She is used to disappearances. Her mother died in childbirth, and her father died when she was three, saving her from a rabid dog. But neighbors Nula and Joe took in Naomi and care for her as if she were their own. Naomi's best friend, Lizzie Scatterding, was also taken in by neighbors in Blackbird Tree. They have much to be grateful for, and yet... Naomi keeps thinking about how that boy Finn, who "seemed to fit so easily in his body, unlike the other, clumsy boys around."
Naomi's first-person account alternates with chapters set "across the ocean" in Ireland that shine a light on the doings of a certain Mrs. Kavanagh. Bit by bit, Creech connects the two threads, exploring the pangs of first love, the loneliness of a friend's betrayal and the wish to truly belong somewhere. As with so many of Creech's books, love--of family, friends and home, wherever we may find it--pulls her characters together and outweighs any amount of gold. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness