The Water Castle

Listening to narrator Chris Henry Coffey recount the escapades of young Ephraim and his unlikely compatriots in their quest to reveal the secret of Maine's Water Castle is like having a storyteller of one's own. The immediacy of each moment is clear: the sadness of seeing a once vital father ravaged by a stroke, the animosity that has festered over generations among the townspeople, the taste of Needham candy, and the thrill of pooling talents to effect change. Coffey keeps to a steady pace and uses only a slight pause or emphasis at key moments. Chapters alternate between the current day and the early twentieth century, creating a double mystery. Is there truth to the stories of a youth-extending water hidden underground? What brought the Crystal Springs resort to ruin? Listeners will be eager for answers. A.R. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

November 26, 2012
Blakemore (Secrets of Truth and Beauty) skillfully explores the intersection of science and magic in this multifaceted story. When 11-year-old Ephraim Appledore-Smith’s father suffers a stroke, the family leaves Cambridge, Mass., for his mother’s ancestral home in Crystal Springs, Maine. Known as the Water Castle, it’s where her family bottled water, long disappeared, that was believed to have healing powers—some claimed it came from a Fountain of Youth. Interspersed with chapters taking place in the Water Castle in 1908, the plot grows increasingly sophisticated as Ephraim becomes obsessed with finding the water he believes will cure his father. He and two classmates whose families have been linked to his for generations—not always positively—come together on a research project about explorer Robert Peary, but are soon, along with Ephraim’s siblings, discovering secret rooms and staircases in the intricately built house, in search of the water. While strongly suggesting that the water has magical, scientifically based powers, Blakemore refuses to provide a neat explanatory ending (which may frustrate some readers); instead, a sense of skeptical wonder pervades the book and lingers. Ages 10–14. Agent: Sara Crowe, Harvey Klinger.