SPINELESS

A budding young Gilded Age naturalist discovers more than he ever dreamed possible.

Twelve-year-old Algie Emsworth of Chicago has asthma and possibly the tuberculosis that killed his father three years earlier. His mother, hovering and anxious, decides to take him and his 16-year-old brother, Everett, to the Hotel Paraíso in Florida for the winter season. As the steamer is about to dock, Algie sees two men in a boat catch a small octopus. Overhearing one of the men saying he will cut it up for bait, Algie jumps overboard to save the little creature—which he does, only finding out later that the man is a famed naturalist and author whose magazine adventure stories have enthralled him. On his way to the hotel, Algie meets Lulu and Frankie, the rambunctious, highly competent Cuban and White American daughters of the hotel’s owner. Meanwhile, strange things are occurring around the hotel, including odd lights and washed-up sea creatures, and as the three children sleuth, they discover something incredible. Algie (whose name astute readers may figure out holds significance) must come to grips with his physical weaknesses and, in the process, discovers his strengths. This exceptionally well-written story gives a nod to the era's fascination with creepy hauntings and dastardly secrets as it expertly transports readers into the atmosphere of 19th-century Florida, uniting well-drawn, nuanced characters with imaginative and tension-building plot twists. Most characters default to White.

Pure storytelling at its best.