Angel Thieves

March 1, 2019
A Texas bayou holds memories and secrets, weaving together people and animals through connected histories.Buffalo Bayou takes her place as part of an ensemble cast that spans nearly two centuries. Sixteen-year-old Cade Curtis is a white boy who works alongside his father stealing angel statues from cemeteries for an antiques dealer, and Soleil Broussard is a 16-year-old Creole Christian with a tiny honey bear jar tattooed on her wrist. The two attend school together in present-day Houston, Texas, but the story intertwines their connection with stories of slaves and an ocelot in a narrative that runs away like the rushing of a river. Texas is a gorgeous backdrop for the story, eliciting haunting imagery that spotlights the natural beauty of the state. Each character helps piece together a quilt of experiences that stream from the omnipresent bayou who sees, hears, and protects, and the revelations of their overlapping connections are well-paced throughout. The novel is less successful, however, at underscoring why there are so many voices battling for space in the text. Too-short vignettes that are rather haphazardly forced together provide glimpses into the lives of the characters but make it difficult to follow all of the threads. While an author's note offers historical background explaining the inspiration for the characters, it does not provide sufficient cohesion.Moving imagery is muddied by disjointed character representation in a novel that feels overcrowded. (author's note) (Fiction. 13-15)

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March 25, 2019
The Texas Buffalo Bayou is both an evocative character and setting in this atmospheric novel about an angel thief searching for redemption. Cade doesn’t enjoy helping his father steal stone angels from graveyards, but it helps to ease financial burdens for the kind, elderly antiques dealer who took in Cade and his father when Cade was an infant. Still, stealing doesn’t seem right to Cade, and he wonders what Soleil, his religious new crush, would think if she found out. Cade wants to do “something good” to make up for his sins, and he finds that opportunity in Zorra, an abused ocelot left to die in her cage. The vivid bayou setting serves as the connecting force as Appelt (The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp) intertwines the present-day story of Cade and Zorra with a historic tale involving a former slave and the angel monument that guides her and her daughters to safety. Using short vignettes and multiple viewpoints (including that of the bayou) that can make the novel feel overfilled, the author shows the best and worst sides of humanity and underscores the powerful force of the bayou, which both holds and erases secrets. Ages 14–up.

May 1, 2019

Gr 9 Up-Houston today: a teenage boy and his father steal marble angels from cemeteries in the dead of night. A teenage girl, inspired by a young boy and a honey bear jar, takes a chance on love. An ocelot, trapped by a poacher, suffers and starves alone in its cage. Houston, 1846: a freed black woman runs away with her two enslaved young daughters, searching along the bayou for the marble woman who will mark their salvation. The Buffalo Bayou sees it all. The Buffalo Bayou gives what it can, and the Buffalo Bayou remembers. Told in interspersed perspectives across time, these tales are connected by their setting as well as by themes of desperation, hope, and faith. Short chapters and lyrical prose give this novel an atmospheric, poetic sensibility. Elements of historical fiction, contemporary fiction, and magical realism will appeal to a range of readers. VERDICT Spiritual, succinct, and emotionally gripping, this brief but powerful novel is a masterpiece, deserving of a place in every library that serves teens.-Liz Overberg, Zionsville Community High School, IN

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