6th March 2018, Dancing Lemur Press, 136 pages, Paperback, Review copy
Book summary
It’s 1969 and ten-year-old Davy is in a predicament. With two weeks
remaining of the summer holidays, he’s expelled from the public pool for
sneaking into the deep end and almost drowning. How will he break the
news to his hard-working single mother? She’s at the diner all day, Davy
has no friends, and he’s too young to stay by himself.
The
answer lies in his rescuer, mysterious thirteen-year-old Ellis Wynn.
Visiting her Grammy for the summer, Ellis offers to babysit Davy. She
teaches him about “corners”–forgotten or neglected areas fixed up
special. Together, the kids tackle several “corners” and Davy learns
what it means to bring joy to others.
Davy begins to
wonder, though. Why does Ellis want to be his friend? Why doesn’t she
ever smile? And is Davy just one of Ellis’ “corners?”
Nayu's thoughts
This book is rather special.
It's all about the healing power of friendship, someone giving you a
chance, which started when Dacey got banned the swimming pool. I
agree with his son in the flash forwards passages that a ban was
a mega strict overreaction, but without it he'd never met Ellis who helped change the
way he viewed the world. Further on in the book he daydreams about
her being a mermaid, which is kind of true because she saved him from
drowning, then continued helping him see positivity in his hard life,
which changed not only his mother's view on life but affected other
people, just like Ellis's grandmother did.
Ellis is extremely
special, with a secret of her own that gets revealed at the end of
the book. Everyone needs an Ellis-her corners make a humongous
difference for whoever they are intended for. I'd really like to have
known a bit more about Mr Mosely as I hope the future continued
getting brighter for him, thanks to what Ellis made Davey do. It must
have been harder having agoraphobia in a time when mental illness
wasn't as recognised as it is today. I do have a few corners of my
own, and will make sure I maintain them and create new ones when the
time is right. Ellis's corners definitely helped changed life for both
people she knew and strangers. I hope you enjoy making a corner
once you've read this sweet emotional read.
Find out more on Corrina's website.
Suggested read
Another good read about emotions that takes place in the past (at least I think it is...can't quite remember!) is Bigfoot, Tobin and Me by Melissa Savage (Children's, 9 years +, 10E/10E)
Yay! So glad to see this book gaining a wider audience. Had The pleasure of reading it as well and LOVED it!
ReplyDelete