Starred review from March 25, 2013
Zach plays with dolls. Never mind that they’re action figures, heroes in a wild, improvisational saga he acts out with friends Poppy and Alice. Never mind that he’s a solid student and rising basketball star. Zach is 12, and his father has decided this must stop. While Zach’s at school, the dolls go to the dump, and Zach is left with only rage. He quits the game, but Alice and Poppy haul him out for one more quest: a bus trip to lay to rest the Queen, a bone china doll that Poppy swears is made from the bones of a murdered girl. Another crazy quest from Poppy’s fertile brain? Or could this ghost story be real? The wonderfully eerie doll, the realism of the kids’ improbable logic, and the ache underlying every character’s actions create as much a state of existential anxiety as narrative tension. Black captures the adolescent sense that things are about to explode before they get explained. And it’s a darn good adventure, too. Ages 10–14. Author’s agent: Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Jennifer Rofé, Andrea Brown Literary Agency.
June 24, 2013
When Zach’s father insists that the games he—and friends Poppy and Alice—play with dolls must end, the three friends refuse to let their imaginations die. Instead, they set out on an epic adventure involving a china doll that just might be made from the bones of a murdered girl. And along the way, they discover that there could be more to what was once a simple backyard game. Narrator Nick Podehl delivers a fun-filled reading that will delight this audiobook’s young-adult target audience. Podhel delivery is simple, his pacing steady, and his performance one that skillfully captures all the action of this imaginative tale. Ages 10-14. A Margaret K. McElderry paperback.