WHERE THE WATER TAKES US

In former Pixar animator Barillaro’s debut novel, a girl must spend the summer at her grandparents’ Canadian island house when her mother’s pregnancy turns risky.

Although Ava Amato, 11, loves the island, this time she’s preoccupied with worries. Are the twins, in utero, more important than her mother’s life? When Ava witnesses a woodpecker’s death, she believes she is cursed, especially after Nonna tells her that a bird in the house is said to foretell death. Ava makes a deal with the dead bird: Her mother must survive even if the twins don’t. In an effort to stave off the curse, she rescues two robin eggs she finds and raises the babies, with her grandmother’s help. She eventually opens up about the deal to Cody MacDonald, an 11-year-old boy visiting the lake with his dad after his parents’ recent divorce. Though initially she finds him brash, a friendship slowly sparks, and when a perilous situation arises during a big storm, Ava must summon her swimming skills and courage to save the day. Warm intergenerational relationships, strongly drawn characters, lyrical descriptions of nature, and nuanced depictions of Ava’s worries create an engrossing read that explores the boundary between childhood and adolescence. Ava is of Italian and Korean heritage; Cody presents White. Barillaro's occasional, delicate watercolors and vignettes in the margins accompany this quietly powerful story.

A lyrical and sensitively rendered coming-of-age tale.