Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories-but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar ( Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).ĭriven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. Both characters are well developed, and Warga skillfully handles both their delicate, emotional friendship and larger subjects of grief and gun violence. Throughout, Quinn struggles with her guilt and a secret she’s keeping while Cora struggles with her last interaction with Mabel, wondering whether she can still be friends with Quinn, and understanding the Lebanese heritage she knows relatively little about but that shapes people’s perceptions of her. Eventually the two begin to work together on a time-travel project, seeking a wormhole that will allow them to travel back in time and prevent the shooting.
On Cora’s 12th birthday, she finds a box on her front porch: Quinn believes she has discovered a way to fix everything, but she needs Cora’s help. The story unfolds in chapters that alternate between the two girls’ viewpoints Quinn’s chapters open with movingly honest letters to Parker. While Cora’s family grieves openly and makes sure she sees a therapist regularly, Quinn’s parents fight constantly over who is to blame for what Parker did.
Quinn McCauley, who is White, is coping with the emotional fallout of her brother Parker’s life-changing actions. She is mourning the loss of her older sister, Mabel, who died in a school shooting. Two best friends haven’t spoken in the year since the tragedy that upended their lives.Ĭora Hamed lives with her Lebanese father and White American maternal grandmother her mother left years earlier.
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