(2) 4-6 Twelve-year-old Lonny is a lifeling: he has the ability to restore life to dying creatures, though this special power causes him to age every time he uses it. He's close to adult-size now; to protect him, his watchmaker father forbids him and his little brother, Midge, from going into town, where Lonny is more likely to give in to the almost irresistible buzzing sensation that alerts him to a creature in need. The boys have lived a sheltered and isolated life in the forest, almost in suspended animation, never interacting with anyone other than their father and housebound grandad. Their late mother's photo album and grandmother's notebook of stories provide clues to the larger world. One fateful day, the brothers do venture into town, on what turns out to be the day of the annual Lifeling Festival. They're shocked to hear their grandmother's stories repeated as myth, but with important differences, skillfully delineated by Applebaum, reflecting the townsfolk's point of view. The narrative otherwise sticks closely to Lonny's perspective as he comes to realize some complicated and dangerous truths. A richly imagined Tuck Everlasting–esque fantasy, with an epilogue that turns the story in an unexpected but satisfying direction.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2022

(2) 4-6 Maggie Cruise is a middle child, a "middler," not a special "eldest" like her brother Jed. In Fennis Wick, every eldest has an enjoyable life until they turn fourteen, when they have the "honor" of going to camp to train for the Quiet War. It's widely known that all good people send their eldests to camp, while those families that refuse become "wanderers" and are a threat to society. Eldests are heroes; eldests get all the attention; but when Maggie discovers a wanderer girl named Una near the town's boundary, she concocts a plan to be a hero, too, by turning Una and her father in to the authorities. The results of Maggie's plan are not what she expects, though, and in trying to make up for her mistakes, she learns that her home, the camp, and even the Quiet War are not at all what the people of Fennis Wick have been led to believe. Applebaum's suspenseful and inventive story has echoes of The Giver (rev. 7/93) and other dystopian classics; it avoids truly frightening scenes in favor of developing Maggie's own courage, character, and capacity for friendship. Moral quandaries and philosophical questions deepen this ­page-turner.

Reviewer: Sarah Berman | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2020