Lost & Found

January 12, 2015
This novel by Australian travel writer and first-time novelist Davis attempts to use whimsy as a delivery mechanism for a meditation on loss and loneliness among the very young and very old. Seven-year-old Millie Bird is obsessed with death, inscribing her encounters with dead things in a "Book of Dead Things." Entry twenty-eight is "MY DAD." As a result of losing her husband and Millie's father, it's not long before Millie's unstable mother drops her at a Perth department store by the "Ginormous Women's Underwear" section and never returns. Millie spends a couple of nights hiding out in the store, seemingly undetected by anyone except a mannequin she treats as a companion and an old man she approaches in the store's café who identifies himself as "Karl the Touch Typist." Karl is battling his own grief after the loss of his wife. Finally caught by store security, Millie, with Karl's help, escapes authorities and makes her way home, where an elderly neighbor, Agatha Pantha, an unpleasant shut-in following her husband's death, somehow decides it would be better to accompany Millie to find her mother in Melbourne than to call the police. Karl catches up with them and the unlikely trio travels across Australia. Ultimately, this journey toward understanding and accepting death is too predictable, offering little aside from the quirks of its characters.

October 15, 2014
Soon after seven-year-old Millie Bird's dad dies of cancer, her mother abandons her in a department store. Karl the Touch Typist, so called because he loves the act of typing and types on every surface he can find, has escaped from a nursing home and taken refuge in the same store where Millie has been left. Agatha Pantha, who lives across the street from Millie, has not left her house since her husband's death seven years before. Millie's plight brings out a protective impulse in the two octogenarians, and the three of them, along with a department store mannequin named Manny, embark on a journey across the Australian Bush to find Millie's mother, Millie posting signs that read IN HERE MUM along the way. A big hit in Australia, this novel was written as a PhD thesis on grief. Though the whimsy grows tiresome, Davis shows particular skill in getting inside the mind of a seven-year-old. Her dotty characters and themes of displacement and marginalization call to mind the works of fellow Aussie Elizabeth Jolley, minus Jolley's sharp edge.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2014

Seven-year-old redhead Millie is abandoned at a local store by her grieving mother; widowed Agatha hasn't left her home or spoken to a soul in seven years; and widower Karl has escaped from a nursing home. The only novel you'll ever read that served as a PhD dissertation on grief; a debut sold to 23 countries.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2014

Seven-year-old Millie lost her father to cancer and is abandoned by her grieving mother in a department store. By chance Millie meets two other damaged and suffering souls: 87-year-old Karl the Touch Typist and 82-year-old Agatha Pantha, both of whom are coping very badly with the deaths of their long-term spouses. The story is told from their different viewpoints, as they feel compelled to leave their small town in western Australia and take a quirky trip across the desert. Unconventional characters and slapstick action are combined with heartbreaking moments in this fresh take on the shared humanity of loss and the possibility of redemption, making this title a moving and unforgettable read. VERDICT Australian author Davis's debut animates characters with distinctive and fallible voices; Millie is wise beyond her years, while Agatha is limited by her obsession with aging. For all readers who have ever faced grief and felt that everyone else knows what they are doing and how to handle it. Mourning, grief, and the mystery of death will boost this book's appeal, particularly to teens, and will generate lots of discussion points for book clubs. [See Prepub Alert, 7/21/14.]--Jan Marry, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.