Cohn, Edith Spirit’s Key, 320 p. Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Books for Young Readers, 2014. $16.99
Content: G
Spirit's family has a "family gift" of seeing into
the future. When Spirit and her father
moved to Bald Island six years ago, he established a clientele of
“believers”. By now Spirit should have
inherited the "family gift", but has not because she is mourning the
loss of her beloved adopted pet dog Sky, a wild baldie. The community believes Sky and other dogs
like him are "devil spirits" because of the island's legends and long
held beliefs. Spirit finds Sky's dog tag
in a neighbor's gravel driveway which seems to unlock her ability to foresee
the future and Sky’s ghost. As more
baldies are found dead and the community becomes very ill, a great sense of
fear forces the doctor to quarantine those who are sick, including her father.
Spirit continues to receive “messages” from unknown people which give her
courage to try to save those who are sick and the baldies on the island.
Edith Cohn’s debut novel is creatively written and provides
the reader with a strong sense of angst felt by the Bald Island's community's
prejudice toward baldies and "ding batters" (outsiders). This book was an endearing animal book
without needing a box of tissues like I needed when I read Where the Red Fern
Grows. In the end, I walked away from
the book proud of Spirit and her accomplishments. SL
EL – ADVISABLE. Reviewer: SL, Library Teacher
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