Horn Book Review
Twelve-year-old Zach and his longtime friends Poppy and Alice have created an elaborate, ongoing imaginative game they act out with their dolls and action figures. When his dad throws away Zach's figurines ("it's time you grew up"), the distraught boy abandons the game with little explanation to the others ("you can't play pretend forever"). Poppy attempts to lure him back with the game's all-powerful Great Queen, a bone-china doll so precious that Poppy's mother keeps it in a locked cabinet. Poppy takes the queen, only to be haunted in her dreams by the ghost of a girl whose ashes are inside the doll. The ghost won't rest until she has been properly buried, so Poppy persuades Alice and Zach to journey with her to the girl's gravesite. The impromptu trip includes a scary bus ride, eerie supernatural encounters, and an action-packed sailboat voyage, all of which provide ample thrills for readers, with Wheeler's pencil illustrations softening spooky aspects of the adventure. The narrative is uneven: while the doll is believably creepy, the horror elements and the ghost story remain underdeveloped, as do Poppy and Alice's characters, and the resolution is rather abrupt. But through Zach's complex perspective, author Black poignantly and realistically captures how adolescence inherently brings change; how growing up affects the ways children play; and the inevitable tests friendships face. cynthia k. ritter (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A middle-grade fantasy dons the cloak of a creepy ghost tale to deliver bittersweet meditations on the nature of friendship, the price of growing up and the power of storytelling. The lifelong friendship of Zach, Poppy and Alice revolves around their joint creation, an epic role-playing saga of pirates and perils, queens and quests. But now they are 12, and their interests are changing along with their bodies; when Zach's father trashes his action figures and commands him to "grow up," Zach abruptly quits the game. Poppy begs him to join her and Alice on one last adventure: a road trip to bring peace to the ghost possessing her antique porcelain doll. As they travel by bus and boat (with a fateful stop at the public library), the ghost seems to take charge of their journey--and the distinctions between fantasy and reality, between play and obligation, begin to dissolve....Veteran Black packs both heft and depth into a deceptively simple (and convincingly uncanny) narrative. From Zach's bitter relationship with his father to Anna's chafing at her overprotective grandmother to Poppy's resignation with her ramshackle relations, Black skillfully sketches their varied backgrounds and unique contributions to their relationship. A few rich metaphors--rivers, pottery, breath--are woven throughout the story, as every encounter redraws the blurry lines between childishness and maturity, truth and lies, secrecy and honesty, magic and madness. Spooky, melancholy, elegiac and ultimately hopeful; a small gem. (Fantasy. 10-14)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
