FALLOUT

Opening with Hurricane Carol and closing with Hurricane Hazel, Krisher explores the storms of human nature and the “human tendency to factions and cliques, to whisperings and rumors, to control and power.” It’s a story of witches, in the McCarthy witch-hunts, in the Salem witch trials studied in school and in the meanness of high-school cliques. When freshman Genevieve meets outspoken Brenda Wompers from California, where her father lost his job due to his association with an accused communist, she is torn between her desire to fit in quietly and the responsibility of speaking up. Though the dialogue and plot are often purposive, and the abundance of figurative language borders on overwriting, the story is an important one, and the lesson Genevieve learns—that “Salem was in our nature”—will linger in readers’ minds. A rich novel full of topics for discussion and a good match with Ellen Levine’s Catch a Tiger by the Toe (2005) and Karen Cushman’s The Loud Silence of Francine Green (August 2006). (timeline) (Fiction. 12-15)