Stephen Fair

KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's May 1998 review of the hardcover edition: Like his brother Marcus before him, fifteen-year-old Stephen has been plagued by recurrent nightmares that make his ex-hippie mother terribly anxious. Marcus ended up running away from home, shortly after their father left them. Stephen feels that his dreams are a key to his past, and to some family secret that his mother has been concealing from him. Meanwhile, Stephen has made friends with a classmate named Virginia, who loves to make movies, but she's having her own family problems. Stephen tries to help her keep her family together, and he eventually takes action to learn about the secret in his own family and to bring them together again too. It took me a little while to get into this Canadian novel and understand where it was going, but it has a powerful impact when its themes converge. Stephen's confusion and anguish are vividly depicted, but there are also some lighter notes in the book, and even some good one-liners. It will appeal to thoughtful teens who can empathize with troubled families and appreciate how secrets can be destructive. KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 1998, HarperTrophy, 248p, 18cm, 99-37138, $5.95. Ages 13 to 18. Reviewer: Paula Rohrlick; July 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 4)

VOYA - Cindy Lombardo

Every family is dysfunctional in its own way, and Stephen Fair's is no exception. Stephen lives with his mother, Brenda, and younger sister, Toni, in the "Ark"-an architectural marvel designed by his father, who left the family to pursue his own need to conquer new challenges. Stephen soon finds himself inheriting the disturbing dreams suffered by his older brother Marcus prior to his disappearance. Nightmarish visions of a treehouse surrounded by fire and the piercing wail of a baby invade Stephen's sleep and seem to contribute to his mother's increasingly nervous and anxious behavior. What link still exists between Stephen's parents and Tinkerpaws, the fairytale treetop community that turned from safe haven to dangerous trap? As Stephen struggles to understand the meaning of his dreams he also finds himself enmeshed in the family problems of his classmate Virginia Skye, whose artistic talents and empathy draw them together. Why is Stephen so fascinated by Lehmann Skye, Virginia's charismatic and theatrical, overpowering father? Wynne-Jones maintains a high level of psychological suspense that keeps the reader turning pages at a faster and faster rate, eager to uncover the resolution of a mystery that has shattered a once idyllic existence. The shocking discovery of what really happened at Tinkerpaws leads, ultimately, to the beginning of the healing process for a family whose ties to the past prevented them from living in the present and made them fear the future. VOYA Codes: 4Q 3P S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses, Will appeal with pushing, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).

Children's Literature - Rebecca Joseph

Nightmares of a baby crying in a treetop house and surrounded by fire plague fifteen-year-old Stephen. Similar nightmares prompted his older brother to run away. Determined to solve the mystery of his dreams, Stephen finds help from an unlikely source, a local witch who gives Stephen weird potions, as well as a fellow classmate struggling with family issues of her own. As Stephen comes closer to understanding his dreams, he unlocks a family secret that threatens to break his fragile family even further apart.

School Library Journal

Gr 6 UpStephen Fair, 15, is having nightmaresstrange, confusing nightmares about a baby crying in a treetop. He wants to know what they meanand so does his motherso she hires a psychic practitioner (Stephen calls her a witch). Her special potions are supposed to heal his "energy blockage." His short life has been an eventful onehis father left years ago, and his brother Marcus left, too. Now Stephen needs to unravel the secrets and disturbances of his life and he thinks his dreams and patchy memories hold the key. Then he discovers a letter his mother is hiding from him and sees a puzzling photograph from the past. Could his mother be keeping a secret that involves him? Following his memories and checking out his hunches, the teen unlocks his nightmares and discovers a startling family secret. Stephen is a complex character with colorful friends, including Virginia Elizabeth Dulcima Skye, who helps him learn about family and self. The book may take a while to grab readersthis is an unusual family (they live in an ark-shaped house and used to live in a treehouse) with an unusual history. But once readers learn where the boy's memories may lead him, they'll be hooked. The conclusion of Stephen's journey is a satisfying surprise as well.Sharon Korbeck, Waupaca Area Public Library, WI

Horn Book Magazine

"The nightmare announced its presence in the monkey cage with a low, drawn-out moan." Establishing a mood of confusion and fear from the start, this novel begins with a dream within a dream-placing the reader on the same uneven ground as its fifteen-year-old protagonist, Stephen Fair. Wynne-Jones tells a compelling drama that takes place within Stephen's subconscious mind as well as out in the real world. On the inside is his recurring nightmare, featuring a crying baby, a treetop village, and a wildfire-the same dream that had tormented his older brother Marcus and led to his running away from home four years earlier. On the outside are Stephen's friends and his family (he lives with his mother-who insists that he call her Brenda-and his little sister in "The Ark," the fantastic house his father built for the family before he, too, left them). As the nightmare disturbs his sleep more often, Stephen becomes determined to puzzle out its meaning, convinced that "the dreams were carrying him somewhere" and that at their heart is the secret that is tearing his family apart. He keeps his nightmare from Brenda, but when she worries about his sleeplessness, he submits to a session with Hesketh Martin, a practitioner of kinesiology, who hesitantly diagnoses "energy blockage" and prescribes an elixir of flowers. Unimpressed with Hesketh's abilities, Stephen tries to avoid her, but what Hesketh is finally able to communicate to Stephen sets in motion events that eventually allow the truth to come to light. Wynne-Jones's elemental language, full of earth, water, and fire imagery, convey the secret's power over Stephen's mind-and, it turns out, over Brenda's as well. A couple of facile scenes don't detract from the strong characterization, rich imagery, and well-crafted writing of this ultimately redemptive mystery, which explores truth, deception, and the meaning of family.

Kirkus Reviews

Recurrent nightmares and a strong feeling that his mother is hiding something haunt a teenager in this ethereal novel from Wynne-Jones (The Maestro, 1996, etc.). At 15, Stephen has disturbing dreams of a tree, a fire, and a baby cryingþdreams he seems to have "inherited" from his older brother, Marcus, who left home four years ago. He can't keep them from his loving, hovering mother Brenda, but he can refuse the psychotherapy and other treatments that didn't work for Marcus. While his social life moves in a promising direction, toward friendship with beautiful, brilliant Virginia Skye, his inner turmoil, driven by lack of sleep and his lingering guilt over the departure of his father, Doug, gives rise to tensions at home. Wynne-Jones seldom flatly describes a character's feelings or state of mind; instead, he conveys them through quick, telling details and comments, or heavily symbolic background events. Stephen is surrounded by an unusual, distinctive supporting cast, and compelled by a series of artfully revealed hints that lead at last to truth: Doug and Brenda stole him away from his neglectful birth parents when Stephen was only a baby. Brenda's lies, Doug's departure, even the nightmaresþlinked to suppressed memoriesþall arise from that act, but Stephen is strong enough to weather the storm, and wise enough to offer Brenda an olive branch at the end. An intense study in friendship and troubled family relations, in which the steadiest characters are the teenagers. (Fiction. 12-15)