October 31, 2022
When Parker Kelbrook is fired on his first day as a junior lifeguard at his local Pittsburgh pool, having “managed to pour the… entire supply of Purple Madness Fruit Punch Mix off the high board,” he looks forward to having “a life-affirming amount of fun” by spending the summer at a friend’s Outer Banks beach house. After his father and a close family friend instead pack him off to a remote Topeka-area farm, and Parker manages to leave his belongings on the train, he finds the bunk house rustic and the cultivars curious: they’re “hope and second chances,” he’s told, plus radishes that the workers are forbidden to taste. While Parker learns how to work hard and take responsibility, he also begins to witness odd happenings: a goat floating in the air, and a cow on the bunkhouse roof. Building out Parker’s myriad affectations—formal speech, a freewheeling and privileged manner, and vintage style—Borba (The Midnight Brigade) conjures a sympathetic, brittle-feeling character primed for personal growth. Blended with a quirky, fable-like third-person narrative, the farm’s magical and mysterious elements build to an intriguing novel with a strong emotional core. Characters present as white. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 8–12. Agent: Janine Kamouh, WME.
Starred review from August 15, 2022
A job on a remote Midwestern farm is definitely not in glib slacker Parker Kelbrook's summer plans. The first thing Parker loses is his belief that he can argue his widowed dad into letting him go to the beach instead. The second is his luggage when the train from Pittsburgh drops him off in the midst of cornfields and chugs away. And the third is his blithe assumption that roguish charm will win over his four new dormmates or Molly, a tough-minded girl who lives with the enigmatic farmer in the big house and has "the perfect amount of freckles." What he discovers, along with a new appreciation for the pains and rewards of hard outdoor work, is a mystery: Why are he and his co-workers strictly forbidden to eat the radishes they're cultivating? "Embrace the extraordinary," says Molly in response to his questions...and that turns out to be not only good advice for Parker, but a cue for readers, as the farm grows both crops of a very special sort and (Molly again) "hope and second chances" for the strayed and wounded souls gathered to cultivate them. The roots of that mystery lead to experiences, mundane and decidedly otherwise, that leaf out into a magical summer for Parker and profound changes in course and spirit besides. Kalda supplies liberal quantities of full-page and spot art, with slender, stylized figures representing a White default. A memorable season of mystery, mischief, and marvels. (Fantasy. 10-13)
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