Where the water takes us by Alan Barillaro

 This quiet story reminds me of Kevin Henkes' Junonia and similar titles. Ava's mom has a high-risk pregnancy with twins and Ava is sent to stay with her grandparents for the summer, on one of a cluster of islands in a lake in Canada. She loves her grandparents, but she struggles with feeling like her parents have sent her away because she's a "burden" and she's worried about her mom. Her grandmother tells her some Italian superstitions to entertain her, but this only deepens her worry and when she's caught out on the lake in a storm and finds a dead bird, she begins to believe she's cursed.

She has an awkward burgeoning friendship with Cody, an exuberant boy visiting the area for the summer after his parents' divorce, but her own personal worries and his over-the-top enthusiasm make it hard for them to connect. Ava convinces her grandmother to help her raise two robin eggs - and convinces herself that if the eggs hatch and the fledglings survive, so will her mother. Ava is torn between desperately wanting her mom to be ok and her own ambivalent feelings about her twin brothers to be. The story comes to a close in a climactic storm, where Ava saves Cody's life and eventually accepts the changes her family is going through.

This is very slow-paced and philosophical, with lots of dreamy thoughts from Ava about what she's experiencing and seeing, although she shies away from directly confronting her fears and worries. She's selfish in the manner of most eleven-year-olds, especially as an only child dealing with her mom's high-risk pregnancy. There's a confusing scene when she is rescuing Cody and is described as giving him CPR in the water, in a storm. I am not much of a swimmer, but it seems to me that would be fairly impossible? There's a little hinting at romance/a crush and Cody teases her about "kissing" him.

The most attractive part of this book, for me, was the lovely watercolor art that frames and flows across the pages, showing the quiet, isolated life of the lake, the birds, and the deer. There's also casual inclusion of Ava's mixed heritage, Korean and Italian. The book is just under 200 pages and, while certainly not a beginning chapter book, is also likely not to intimidate readers who don't want to tackle thick, all text books.

Verdict: This isn't likely to fly off the shelves, but if you have an audience for quieter summer stories it will probably find some readers. I think this will possibly click a little more with my audience because of the lake and summer descriptions, although our local lakes are certainly a lot busier than the one described, many people go camping up north where it can be a lot less populated.

ISBN: 9781536224542; Hardcover on B&T for $10.63; Published July 2023 by Candlewick; Review copy provided by publisher; Donated to the library