Olivetti

December 18, 2023
Olivetti—a polite and observant dark green typewriter—and an introverted 12-year-old narrate Millington’s unique debut. Olivetti takes his job as a “protector of memories” seriously. Despite the recent appearance of a laptop (“the glossy show-off”), Olivetti has accumulated “an endless amount of memories” working with owner Beatrice. His patient existence is upended when he’s abruptly sold to a pawn shop and Beatrice goes missing, leaving her husband and four children—including middle schooler Ernest—confused and alarmed. While putting up missing-person flyers, Ernest meets dumpster-diving Quinn, whose father owns the pawn shop. Aided by Olivetti, Ernest and Quinn team up to solve the mystery of Beatrice’s disappearance, and as they try untangling Beatrice’s whereabouts, Ernest frets that his reluctance to speak to a therapist about a mysterious, traumatic family event caused his mother’s departure. While the tantalizing premise is hampered by cliché characterizations, incomplete worldbuilding, and a limp mystery, Olivetti’s snarky observations entertain, and the human protagonists’ endearing support for each other’s endeavors paints a worthwhile portrait of community. Ernest and his family have “copper-colored” skin; other characters default to white. Ages 8–12. Agent: Kristen Terrette, Martin Literary.

January 1, 2024

Gr 4 Up-A lively and tender story about language, archive, and family history, Millington's debut will keep young readers on their toes. Ernest Brindle's family is falling apart after the sudden disappearance of his mother, Beatrice. His siblings are squabbling, his father is unraveling, and he can't figure out why his mother would have sold their beloved typewriter to a pawn shop, of all things, before running away. Enter Quinn, the precocious daughter of the pawnbroker. When Quinn and Ernest discover that Olivetti (the typewriter) is "alive" and can type for them every memory that has been recorded on its keys, they begin a race against time to discover anything and everything the Olivetti can recall about Beatrice. With the help of a friendly, if rather stereotypical, librarian and a Brazilian handyman, the Brindle family use Olivetti's unique ability to scour Beatrice's memories for clues to her whereabouts. This is a charming story filled with idiomatic expressions and wordplay. Formatted in alternating chapters between Ernest and Olivetti's points of view, readers will be delighted by the book's playfulness, as well as its bittersweet look at the power of memory, and how a family can be broken and then healed. VERDICT A quirky, heartfelt novel recommended for general middle grade collections.-Nora G. Murphy

Copyright 2024 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2024
Grades 4-6 *Starred Review* An introverted boy and his missing mother's cherished typewriter plumb forgotten family stories while journeying toward acceptance in this touching middle-grade mystery. The Brindle family swarms distractedly around seventh-grader Ernest, everyone fixed in their ways until the morning Beatrice, his mom, vanishes. This isn't the family's first trauma, but, after "Everything That Happened," Ernest finds an unexpected ally: Olivetti, Beatrice's classic typewriter, who explains, "We [typewriters] hold thousands of stories. Worlds full of words." Because Beatrice spilled her "secrets all over [his] keys," Olivetti breaks his code of silence and recounts Beatrice's writing to help Ernest trace her. As inanimate narrators go, Olivetti is especially well suited to the task and takes turns with Ernest in lending his perspective to the short chapters. And, as stories about stories go, Olivetti's and Ernest's insights about the power of memories, both held and shared, speak volumes. Emotional fragility pervades this introspective debut; sensitive readers should be aware of themes of major illness and its recurrence. Offering a Where'd You Go, Bernadette vibe, with its unspooling of a youth perspective on the adult world, this melancholic yet hopeful pick will appeal to fans of books with nonhuman protagonists and readers who enjoy emotional stories with alternating perspectives, such as Jasmine Warga's A Rover's Story (2022) and The Lost Library (2023), by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass.

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Starred review from February 1, 2024
A magical typewriter brings healing, reconnection, and new friends to a hurting family. Olivetti, a silent but fully conscious typewriter, has been there since the beginning, living with parents Felix and Beatrice and their children, Ezra, Adalyn, Ernest, and Arlo, a "copper-colored family with eyes as rich as ink." Olivetti, who even took part in Felix's proposal to Beatrice, watched playfulness and creativity grow as the children arrived, and he faithfully remembers every single word the people have typed. Then, longing to communicate, he watched the family suffer through Everything That Happened. Which is exactly what seventh grader Ernest is still trying to forget. Constantly carrying his dictionary around, Ernest spends most of his time on the roof away from others, scared of getting close to people for fear of losing them. So, when Beatrice suddenly leaves after taking Olivetti to a pawn shop, grief-stricken Ernest seeks him out and confesses that he fears he's to blame for her departure. Desperate to help, Olivetti takes the unusual action of breaking typewriterly code: He communicates with Ernest in order to help him. But will it be enough? The chapters are told from Olivetti's and Ernest's first-person perspectives and frequently contain flashbacks. Debut author Millington skillfully delivers a complex storyline that deals with heavy topics. With plenty of quotable wisdom, richly textured language, and dry humor, this work reads like a classic. An extraordinary journey that speaks to the "before" and "after" of life-changing events. (Fiction. 10-14)

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May 1, 2024
Ernest is a quiet, shy boy fascinated by the Oxford English Dictionary. Along with his three siblings and his father, he is disturbed and mystified by the sudden disappearance of his mother, Beatrice. In his quest to find her, Ernest has two allies: outgoing friend Quinn and a sentient typewriter named Olivetti. Olivetti can see, hear, feel, and -- though otherwise inanimate -- communicate by typing (as long as someone provides paper). The typewriter also retains a memory of everything that was ever typed on him. His first-person narration alternates with Ernest's as the mystery plot deepens. Clues and shenanigans, quirks and magic, create a smokescreen for both Ernest and the reader, obscuring the real-world human story of a parent with cancer, which is gradually and poignantly revealed. In a surreal, rollicking conclusion, Ernest and his family, including the returned Beatrice, join forces with Olivetti to liberate and repair abandoned typewriters and create a revolution of joyful human-typewriter interaction. The point here could involve an upending of our dystopian AI worries, or could be as simple as a celebration of writing as a therapeutic endeavor in times of trouble. Either way, Ernest is a memorable character in an equally memorable family. Sarah Ellis

(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

January 1, 2024
Ernest is a quiet, shy boy fascinated by the Oxford English Dictionary. Along with his three siblings and his father, he is disturbed and mystified by the sudden disappearance of his mother, Beatrice. In his quest to find her, Ernest has two allies: outgoing friend Quinn and a sentient typewriter named Olivetti. Olivetti can see, hear, feel, and -- though otherwise inanimate -- communicate by typing (as long as someone provides paper). The typewriter also retains a memory of everything that was ever typed on him. His first-person narration alternates with Ernest's as the mystery plot deepens. Clues and shenanigans, quirks and magic, create a smokescreen for both Ernest and the reader, obscuring the real-world human story of a parent with cancer, which is gradually and poignantly revealed. In a surreal, rollicking conclusion, Ernest and his family, including the returned Beatrice, join forces with Olivetti to liberate and repair abandoned typewriters and create a revolution of joyful human-typewriter interaction. The point here could involve an upending of our dystopian AI worries, or could be as simple as a celebration of writing as a therapeutic endeavor in times of trouble. Either way, Ernest is a memorable character in an equally memorable family.

(Copyright 2024 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)