Junonia

Starred review from April 11, 2011
In this introspective story about a child's search for a rare shell, Henkes (Bird Lake Moon) again displays his ability to find profound meaning in ordinary events. Every year Alice Rice and her parents take a trip to Florida's Sanibel Island, but this year things are different. Some of the people Alice is looking forward to seeing are missing, and the neighboring cabin usually rented to a fun artist from New York is now occupied by a friend of Alice's mother, her new boyfriend, and his moody and disruptive six-year-old daughter. Swallowing her disappointment, Alice still believes that her vacation will be a success if only she can find the rare shell she most covets, the junonia ("After all, she was going to be ten. Finding a junonia would be the perfect gift"). Like her disappointments, Alice's discoveries aren't what she expects, but her understanding of peopleâboth old friends and new acquaintancesâdeepens during the process. Readers will empathize with Alice's frustrations and relish her moments of joy. Images of the beach and the moving, meaningful interactions between characters will linger with readers. Ages 8â12.

Starred review from May 1, 2011

Every year, Alice celebrates her birthday week in February with her parents in a cottage on the beach in Sanibel, far from her snowy Wisconsin home.

This year, as she turns 10, the expected holiday company varies just enough to feel odd and challenging: The neighboring Wishmeiers' grandchildren didn't come; another neighbor is snowbound in New York; "aunt" Kate arrives with a new boyfriend and his six-year-old daughter in tow. Alice's longed-for find, a prized junonia mollusk shell, never quite materializes as expected. Henkes' deceptively economical language is rich and complex, cognizant of the ways that the world of adults reveals itself to children, aware of the emotional weight of objects. The third-person narration offers a sense of depth and story beyond the borders of the novel itself, providing distance enough for readers to draw their own conclusions. The author's own drawings grace the cover and chapter openings; the overall book design is elegant and supremely comfortable for middle-grade readers. An only child surrounded by affection, routine and attention, Alice has the space to realize that life can be an adventure experienced independently, even while held closely by those one loves.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2011

Gr 4-5-Alice Rice and her parents spend every February vacation on Sanibel Island, FL. But this year things are different: some of their friends cannot be there, and her mother's college friend Kate is coming with her new boyfriend, Ted, and his six-year-old daughter, Mallory. Trying to make the best of things, Alice is determined to do her usual shell-gathering, hoping this time to find a rare junonia shell, but Mallory disturbs her hoped-for idyll with her tantrums and clinginess. When a phone call from her mother, who has left her to live in France, causes the child to make a scene at Alice's 10th-birthday celebration, Kate and Ted decide to take her home. Alice, who has grown in understanding and empathy for Mallory, must also learn to deal with change and disappointment when she realizes that the junonia shell she finds on the beach was really purchased and placed there by a well-meaning neighbor. As in his previous novels, Henkes's omniscient narrator lends an air of detachment to the telling, even as he describes the action and Alice's feelings. Secondary characters are lightly drawn, descriptions of the island setting are lyrical, and the conflict is gentle, features that will appeal to some readers. Details of shell collecting, a two-page visual guide to shells mentioned in the book, and chapter heading sketches also add interest to this quiet, interior novel.-Marie Orlando, formerly at Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2011
Grades 4-6 *Starred Review* Every year in February, Alice and her parents spend the week of her birthday on Sanibel Island, far from the Wisconsin winter. An only child, Alice revels in her familys comfortable traditions and routines, especially on Sanibel, where they visit the same grown-up friends, stay in the same cottage, and hunt for the same, elusive junonia shell. This year, though, Alice is turning 10, and her entry into double digits isnt the only change on the Florida horizon. A child raised among adults, Alice is mature and acquiescent yet comfortable enough in her childhood to resist the approach of adolescence. Henkes offers a quiet evocation of the simple jealousies and generosities of childhood, as Alice struggles to relinquish her position as perennial darling and try on the mantle of independence. Charming spot illustrations, many featuring beach motifs, begin each short chapter, adding to the palpable seaside atmosphere. The problems Alice faces are never more serious than the absence of a regular family friend or the presence of a tantrum-prone newcomer, but they are still deeply resonant. With tender observations and sensory details, Henkes creates a memorable young individual whose arcadian growing up is authentic and pitch-perfect.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2011
A birthday party, a spilled glass of milk, a plastic gelato spoon, a chance hurtful remark: of such small, ordinary elements Henkes builds a story rooted in the closely observed perceptions of Alice, holidaying with her parents in a cottage on the Florida coast. The holiday is an annual event, steeped in tradition. This year, however, there are changes in personnel, and Alice balances between familiarity and novelty, coziness and independence, self-centeredness and altruism -- the balance beam of turning ten. The two-strand plot involves Alice's dream of finding a junonia shell to add to her collection and a parallel story of a traumatized six-year-old whose mother has just abandoned her family. Along these two strands Henkes traces a kind of EKG of the delicate changes in Alice's moods, from the particular pleasure of the smell of your own knee after a day at the beach to the shameful exhilaration of watching somebody else have a temper tantrum to the potent emotional mixture of sad and angry. Henkes adopts a formal "telling" voice in his narrative, reassuring if slightly austere. The result is the opposite of a high-concept book, its power not in an overall idea or conflict but in a fully realized, respectful portrait of a childhood milestone. sarah ellis

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)