One Plus One Equals Blue

March 1, 2013
Basil and Tenzie both have synesthesia, either a gift or a curse that can make a person into one of life's rejects. For Basil, new to public school from a lifetime of home schooling and previously unaware that not everyone sees numbers as colors, synesthesia just confirms him as a freak. He embraces that status, sitting alone and avoiding his classmates. Tenzie has just moved to town and started at the middle school as well. At first, she seems to have a peculiar and charming resilience that makes her impervious to others' attitudes. Readers--and first-person narrator Basil--only gradually discover that she's much more vulnerable than she first appears. After Carly, Basil's feckless mother, returns from a five-year absence in Hollywood, Basil is appropriately wary. Tenzie, though, ignored by her parents, falls victim to Carly's dysfunctional attention when the young woman takes over production of the school play. The two seventh-graders and Basil's attentive, custodial grandmother are sensitively portrayed, but Basil's voice leaves other characters, especially Carly, only broadly sketched. Her inner workings remain a mystery--just as they are to her bewildered and rejected son. Synesthesia provides an initial bond between Basil and Tenzie, offering a minor subplot, but is never the focus of the tale. An engaging coming-of-age story marked by the somewhat predictable dysfunctional-parent problems that are so common in the type. (Fiction. 11-14)

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April 1, 2013

Gr 5-8-Basil has just started seventh grade after being homeschooled by his hippie-era grandmother. At first he thinks he wants to make friends with other students, but he soon decides that he is just too freaky and different to ever have any friends. In October, when Tenzie shows up at school, everything changes. She is pushy and determined to befriend Basil, whether he likes it or not. When he finds out that Tenzie sees numbers as colors, too, he is prompted to do some research. He discovers that they both have the same neurological condition, only Tenzie's synesthesia helps her with math, whereas Basil's makes him hopelessly confused. Life gets topsy-turvy when Basil's mother, who abandoned him seven years earlier, shows up in town. Basil is wary of Carly, but Tenzie is enamored-the woman is beautiful, glamorous, and claims to be an actress. When she abruptly leaves town once again, Tenzie convinces Basil to run away with her and find Carly. The kids go on a harrowing journey only to discover that everything they need is back home. Synesthesia is an important bond between Basil and Tenzie, and readers are led to believe that the condition is going to be more central to the plot, but this is primarily an engaging story of a boy coming to terms with the shortcomings of his mother. It's a nice companion to Wendy Mass's A Mango-Shaped Space (Little, Brown, 2003), which also incorporates synesthesia.-Ragan O'Malley, Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn, NY

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March 15, 2013
Grades 5-8 Twelve-year-old Basil is a loner, probably because of his freakism of mentally associating numbers with different colors. Then capital-Q quirky Tenzie ( her personality was like the brass section of a band ) arrives at school and befriends himshe won't take no for an answer. Soon Tenzie reveals that she, too, sees colors in her mind. It's a rather stiff start for the novelit seems unlikely that neither kid would have searched the Internet to learn about synesthesia before meeting each other, and there's a didactic quality to description of the condition. Thankfully, a plot emerges with the arrival of Basil's mother, Carly, who disappeared seven years ago to try to make it in Hollywood. Carly is a rich character: charismatic, full of good intent, and quick to excite, but lacking the ability to follow anything through. It's easy to see the attraction she holds for both kidsas well as the disappointment that surely is coming. Though slow to start, this sensitive novel has a fittingly tough and bittersweet finish.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)