Finding Serendipity

Starred review from December 22, 2014
Writing as Banks, Australian adult fiction authors Heather Rose and Danielle Wood make a sparkling children’s book debut in a novel that bridges and blurs reality and fantasy, while offering a tantalizing spin on the notion of story. Tuesday McGillycuddy lives with her language-loving father and author mother, who, under the name Serendipity Smith, writes a bestselling adventure series starring heroine Vivienne Small. When Tuesday’s mother disappears while finishing Vivienne’s final tale, Tuesday types “The End” on her mother’s typewriter, hoping she’ll reappear. When she doesn’t, Tuesday starts writing her own story (“Maybe what we need is a beginning”). As she types, the words transform into silvery threads that transport Tuesday and her dog, Baxterr, to a world reserved for authors, where she enlists Vivienne’s help to find her mother. Their wild escapade (involving an encounter with a pirate whose bluster rivals Captain Hook’s) becomes interwoven with her mother’s fiction. With cinematic imagery and keen wit, the authors construct an inventive novel that raises intriguing questions about the relationship between authors and their characters, and reaches “The End” all too soon. Ages 8–up.