OUTSIDE NOWHERE

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.