Galante, Cecilia The World From Up Here, 320 pages. Scholastic Press, 2016. $17.
Language: PG (18 swears, 0 ‘f’); Mature Content: PG (dad cheats on mom
); Violence: G.
Wren, 12, has enough problems as it is. Her little brother has Asperger’s Syndrome
and her mother tends to be moody and withdrawn,
Now she is also jealous of her cousin Silver, who has just moved to town
and seems to be the golden girl at their mutual school. When her mother ends up in the hospital for
depression, though, both she and her brother have to move in with her cousin
and her aunt, putting her right under the shadow of Witch Weatherly, the spooky
old lady who lives up the mountain with her red raven, spiky pits, and
dangerous snakes. The cousins get to
know each other better and when Silver wants to climb the mountain to meet the
Witch for a school project, Wren decides she’d better accompany her, even
though ever fiber of her being is screaming at her to run the other
direction. Wren needs to learn to have
not only more confidence in herself, but to be open to other people, too.
The addition of the Witch Weatherly mystery (this is not a
fantasy) added a dimension to this that made it more interesting for me beyond
the typical neurotic girl books that have come out lately. I am not sure how well Silver’s tough love
approach to Wren’s worrying would actually work in real life, but I certain
loved her boldness in calling Wren out.
That part alone makes this worth reading.
EL, MS – OPTIONAL.
Cindy, Library Teacher
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