The Waters & the Wild

Starred review from June 1, 2009
Awash in a bruised and aching adolescent sensibility, Weetzie Bat
author Block's new novel doesn't waste a word. Doubles abound: doppelgängers, past lives and dual worlds in which poetic truths can exist alongside the banal details of modern teenage life. Never quite at home—even in her own home—Bee is jolted out of her social isolation by a nighttime apparition of a girl who looks just like her: “ 'You are me,' the girl said. Then she was gone.” Seeking to discover the meaning of this vision, Bee throws her lot in with two other outcasts at school (one thinks she is a reincarnated slave, the other, possibly an alien). For a time, their new friendship buoys all three (“She had, if only briefly, belonged,” Bee thinks. “The world she had never loved before had turned to gold”). Still, hints indicate that Bee's alter ego is intent on reclaiming her place, and Bee grows mysteriously ill. Fragments of poems by Yeats and Shelley are eerily apropos (and may provide an irresistible invitation for further reading). Haunting and thought provoking. Ages 14–up.

July 1, 2009
Gr 7-9-Bee, 13, wants to eat the dirt in her mothers garden; Haze believes that he is half-alien; and Stephanie thinks that she is a reincarnated slave girl from the 1800s whose name was Sarah. One day Bee sees a girl in her room who could be her twin. After the girl says, You are me, she disappears. Bee usually doesnt talk to anyone, but decides to ask Haze about the vanishing figure. He explains that she is a doppelganger and that seeing one means your eminent death. Bee hears Sarah sing a Billie Holiday song about lynching and talks to her. The three loners become friends. They crash a party by deciding to be invisible and enjoy drinking and dancing before being caught. They grab hands, run out of the party, and fly away. When they land, Bee finds a poisonous plant in her pocket. The teens figure out that she is a changeling, and the real Bee is desperate to have her body back. The author does an excellent job of integrating background slices of paranormal history and poetry. This slim novel is comprised of short chapters, is quickly paced, and has a surprise ending. It will appeal to reluctant readers, fans of the bizarre, and teens who feel that they dont quite fit in."Samantha Larsen Hastings, West Jordan Public Library, UT"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2009
Grades 5-8 Blocks latest is short enough to be read in one sitting, but nonetheless has an impact that will be felt much longer. It is the perplexing and ethereal story of Bee, a 13-year-old who has begun seeing her own doppelgnger. You are me, her twin says before disappearing into the dark. She befriends two other kids who exist on the fringe: Haze, a stuttering loner who thinks he is the offspring of an alien, and Sarah, who believes she is the reincarnation of a slave from the 1800s. Together they work out that Bee must be a changeling, a hideous elf who was switched at birth with the real Bee. Blocks magical realism doesnt always hold together (this is the kind of book where characters declare I wish we could fly out of nowhere), but the spooky mood she conjures is what will stay with readersthat and her gloriously grotesque descriptions of everyday objects. Inevitably some will find this too precious, but many will be inspired to reach for Blocks back catalog of other dangerous angels.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)