Thornhill

Smy, Pam. Thornhill. 2017. 533p. ISBN 978-1-62672-654-3. Available at FIC SMY on the library shelves.

It is 2016, and Ella and her father just moved to Midchester, in a house abutting the extensive grounds of an abandoned orphanage named Thornhill. Her father works a lot, and Ella often finds herself at home alone. She doesn’t know anyone in town, so she spends a lot of time looking out her window at the ruins that is Thornhill. When she spots a light in the top floor, Ella is curious. Who lives there?

In 1982, Mary is an orphan who lives in Thornhill. Suffering from selective mutism, Mary has no friends and spends most of her time in her top floor bedroom, creating masterful puppets out of fabric and clay. These are her true friends. Unfortunately for Mary, a bully she thought had been adopted for good has been returned to the orphanage for poor behavior. This unnamed bully has been harassing Mary and turning all of the other girls against her. When she was here Mary could not sleep at night and had to watch her every step. Now that she’s returning, Mary confides in her diary that she will never have a moment’s peace.

As Ella investigate the property next door, she finds old broken dolls. She begins fixing them, and eventually she meets Mary. Then Ella discovers that Mary died at Thornhill back in 1982. Mary, meanwhile, tries to deal with her bully but the conditions at the orphanage grow worse as kids are adopted out and the facility readies for closing. When Mary discovers that she and her bully will become roommates in a new institution, it is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. She needs to take matters into her own hands. Will present-day Ella assuages past Mary’s ghost and become her friend?

Mary’s perspective is told through a diary, while Ella’s view is presented through images only. The two stories combine in a beautifully written sad tale of bullying and its consequences.

This Is Just a Test

Rosenberg, Madelyn and Wendy Wan-Long Shang. This Is Just a Test. 2017. 244p. ISBN 978-1-338-03772-2. Available at FIC ROS on the library shelves.

As the only Chinese Jew he knows aside from his sister, David Da-Wei Horowitz feels very different from everyone else, especially as he’s preparing his bar mitzvah. David’s mother is Chinese, and her mother lives with them. David’s father is Jewish, and his mother lives a few blocks away from them in a suburb of Washington, D.C. Both grandmothers are always competing against each other to see who can cook the better dish, who can better care for the family, and who is loved more. David feels like a ping pong ball between the two of them, always trying to avoid offending either grandmother. Each grandmother endeavors to win David’s affection but rather successfully manage to embarrass him.

At school, David and best friend Hector are mostly ignored by the others, but when heartthrob Scott asks them to join his school trivia team, David jumps at the chance. He hopes to learn how to talk to the girl he likes, Kelli Ann. The three of them begin getting together to practice. Stressed about the upcoming school trivia tournament, David is also worried about his bar mitzvah, especially since both grandmothers are trying to plan it for him, and it has to top his cousin Jacob’s own celebration last year. However, looming larger in David’s mind is the possibility of nuclear annihilation. In this year 1983, both Americans and Soviets are facing each other in a Cold War, and each side has enough nuclear weapons to achieve mutually assured destruction. David is constantly worried that the bombs are about to fly, especially after watching a television special, The Day After. He decides to help Scott build a nuclear shelter in Scott’s back yard, where there will only be room for two, as Scott finds Hector weird. Can David reconcile his friends and manage to avoid dying of embarrassment at his bar mitzvah, or will the Soviets launch a nuclear attack and end it all?

The stress on children of living in the Cold War is palpable in this entertaining book. For other books representing life during the cold war, take a look either at A Night Divided, another historical book where an oppressive society, in this case East Germany, attempts to control the thoughts of its citizens and how a teenage girl fights back, or at The Enemy, taking place in the United States in the 1950s.