The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S. (as told to his brother)

Starred review from January 4, 2021
It’s great to step into a magical wardrobe and be transported to a fantastic world, but what happens when you come back? Returning from a magical place called Aveinieu with a royal blue leaf in his hair, 12-year-old Aidan finds he’s been missing for six days, his inexplicable disappearance resulting in a massive, town-wide search as well as endless police questioning of his family and best friend. But joy over his safe return quickly turns to unease about his inability to account for the time—Aidan knows he won’t be believed, and his exhausted parents don’t know whether to be worried or furious. His brother, 11-year-old Lucas, previously duped by Aidan’s fanciful stories, tries to catch him in inconsistencies in a brotherly arc that moves toward emotional support. Via Lucas’s urgent narration, Levithan (19 Love Songs) validates both Lucas’s real-world experience and Aidan’s post-portal mourning, telling a well-paced story about the collision of realities in the vein of Laura E. Weymouth and Seanan McGuire. Ages 8–12. Agent: Bill Clegg, the Clegg Agency.

Narrator Everette Plen sets the tone of brotherly concern and suspicion that underpins this unusual take on fantasy. For six terrifying days Lucas's parents and the police searched for his older brother, who disappeared from their home without a trace. More mysterious is his reappearance in the attic, still in his pajamas, with a blue leaf in his hair. Aidan says he visited a magical world, Aveinieu but then stops giving details when he's met with disbelief and thinly veiled anger. Plen's youthful voice embodies Lucas, the bookish 11-year-old who tries to draw out Aidan's true story, in light of past brotherly pranks. Plen's gentle portrayal of Lucas makes the listener care more about the fallout of Aidan's trip than the sparse magical details. S.T.C. � AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine