Finding Esme

May 1, 2018

Gr 3-6-Esme McCauley is a lonely but spirited 12-year-old who feels nothing ever happens to her the way it's supposed to. She lives in the rural South with her grandmother Bee, who is famous for her peach pies and ability to find most things; her mother, June Rain, who has been depressed and distant since Esme's father Harlan left; her little brother Bo who is as "wild as the hills;" and their dog, Old Jack. Their lives are changed forever after Esme's beloved grandfather, Paps, dies from a heart attack while driving his tractor on Solace Hill. Esme struggles with losing Paps. While chasing fireflies with Bo, Esme discovers dinosaur bones. Could it be a message from Paps? Along with bringing reporters and researchers to the site, Esme's discovery also sets her on a path to understanding the mysteries around her and coming to terms with the loss of her grandfather. VERDICT A poignant tale for readers who enjoy character-driven realism.-Jess Gafkowitz, Brooklyn Public Library

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2018
A 12-year-old girl from small-town Texas finds dinosaur bones that might save the family farm.Esme's paternal grandfather, Paps, died of a heart attack three months ago while digging for something on Solace Hill. His tractor sits on the spot where he died. Her grandmother, Bee, is too busy trying to keep the family afloat selling peaches and honey to move it; her mother, June Rain, won't hardly get up off the couch; and her father ran off three years ago. Curling up beneath the tractor in search of some remnant of Paps, Esme sees a bone sticking up out of the earth. At first she's terrified but later enlists a friend to help her uncover what turns out to be a dinosaur skull. The family is about to lose the farm to foreclosure, so her motivation for keeping the dinosaur a secret is not quite clear. Neither is the profusion of side plots that bog down the primary narrative. Bee is known for her magical finding powers, a talent Esme seems to have inherited, but the magic has no real bearing on the actual plot, and in the end Esme's engaging voice isn't enough to make sense of the mishmash. The 1972 setting is realized only through a number of cultural references that modern readers are not likely to recognize, and the persistent whimsy of the townspeople becomes cloying. The novel adheres to a white default. Crowley's a promising writer, but the story doesn't land. (Historical fiction. 8-12)

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September 17, 2018
Three months after 12-year-old Esme McCauley’s grandfather dies while digging on Solace Hill, Esme discovers dinosaur bones under his tractor at that very place. No one knows what Paps was looking for that day, and if anyone did, they wouldn’t say. Esme feels alone among her absent family members. Her tough grandmother, Bee, cares for the family, which faces the foreclosure of their struggling Texas peach farm; her father, Harlan, disappeared years earlier; and her mother, June Rain, has “been in a bad spell as long as a Texas drought.” When a professor arrives to investigate the bones, Esme worries that he’ll take away the one thing that makes her life special, but he opens her eyes to paleontology as an exciting field of study and to the idea of a future outside of the small town. Crowley (The Stolen One) creates a believable small-town Texas setting, but the plot circles rather than advances—side tales about townspeople seem unrelated, as does a thread about the family’s ability to find missing things. Ages 8–12.

January 1, 2019
Esme discovers dinosaur bones buried on the hill where her grandpa died--a discovery that brings both excitement and trepidation. Meanwhile, Esme works to unearth multiple mysteries regarding her distant mother's past, her absentee father's whereabouts, and her grandma Bee's ability to find lost things (which Esme has inherited). Esme's warm, folksy voice and the small-town Texas setting stand out in this story about finding happiness after sorrows.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)