Synopsis
NOT EVERYONE SEES THE WORLD THROUGH THE SAME LENS. From the author of Something Invisible comes this funny and poignant novel about the hues of friendship.
Spunky Olivia and eccentric Hal are an unlikely pair. While Hal suffers from a neurological condition called synesthesia that causes him to associate things with colors, Olivia tends to see the world in black and white. Still, these two are friends through thick and thin, through rose-colored days and blue days, even when Hal’s plan to get rid of his mother’s boyfriend backfires by driving his mother away. Olivia’s honest, funny and always-opinionated voice tells this story with colorful perception.
Publishers Weekly
Like a funny cousin of Siobhan Dowd's The London Eye Mystery(Reviews, Dec. 3, 2007), this Irish novel introduces a boy whose thinking runs on its own idiosyncratic track, in his case because he has synaesthesia. In the opening lines, narrator Olivia is explaining to her best friend that blue is a bad color for a kite: "Think about it.... Where does a kite spend its time?" Hal refuses to answer, and later counters that the kite must be blue because Friday is "a light pretty blue. With frills." The exchange sets the stage for the type of logic-and the dynamic-that guide these two friends as they pull a mean prank on Alec, Hal's mother's live-in boyfriend-never guessing that Hal's mother is one step ahead of them the whole time, with a plan of her own to help Hal come to terms with his father's death years ago and with Alec's presence. Parkinson (Something Invisible) knows how to bring together the comic and heartbreaking without ever manipulating readers, and her characters have a full dose of humanity at their disposal. Memorable, wise and thoroughly entertaining. Ages 11-14. (Mar.)
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