The Things She's Seen

April 1, 2019
Beth Teller may be a ghost, but she is hoping to solve a mystery and heal her father's broken heart. Beth is a biracial Aboriginal (no nation is specified) girl from Australia who remembers very little about the car accident that took her life. She can't fathom why her spirit hasn't moved on, but she suspects it might have something to do with her love for her grieving white father. He's a detective who always did right by her mother and siblings after being rejected by his own parents when he fell in love with an Aboriginal woman. Dedicated to serving justice, her dad has fallen into a deep depression after Beth's death. When he finally heads back to work, he must investigate a possible arson: the charred remains of a children's home. What Beth and her father find are secrets far more complicated than the mere burning of a building. A legacy of violence sits at the heart of this important novel, yet artful language softens the blows of pain and fear. The only interviewee the two detectives can consult is a witness who speaks in riddles: Isobel Catching. Who is she, and what does she know? Crimes--common yet unspeakable--rise to the surface in this fast-paced thriller with a supernatural bent. An #ownvoices story that empowers its female heroines, giving them pride in their lineage and power in remembering. (Thriller. 13-18)

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April 15, 2019
Grades 7-10 One way to heal is through storytelling. As Catching knows, it is stories that get you through and bring you home. Sibling authors Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina pack an astonishing amount of storytelling and intensity in their relatively short novel. Beth's story begins right after her death from an automobile accident. Since Beth's father, a police officer, is left to grieve alone, Beth finds herself still stuck on the mortal side of death, unable to interact with anyone but him. Until, that is, she discovers a key witness in the arson case that has brought them to the remote Australian town can see her. In between Beth's narration are chapters told in verse from the point of view of Isobel Catching, a girl who has a heartbreaking but vital story to tell that ultimately reveals an evil embedded deep within the town's roots. Devastatingly beautiful magical realism drives Isobel's poems and sheds much needed light on the history of abuse perpetrated against aboriginal girls.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2019
Beth Teller has done nothing but worry since the car accident that took her life. Her father, a police officer, is the only one still able to see her, but being able to interact with his daughter's ghost seems only to intensify his grief. Determined to care for him, and in an attempt to snap him back to his normal self, Beth pushes her dad to investigate a possible case of arson in a small Australian town. One mystery spills into another?whose body was burned in the fire? What is the meaning behind the enigmatic story that sole witness Isobel Catching relates? As Beth and her father begin to uncover the town's violent secrets, the teen realizes that Catching's story also connects to Beth herself and to her unexplained continued presence among the living. The brief, well-crafted novel, written by a sister-brother team and speaking through two Australian Aboriginal voices (Beth, whose mother was Aboriginal and father is white; and Catching), is a welcome #OwnVoices addition to YA shelves. A somewhat rushed conclusion is the only distraction from the mix of small-town intrigue, supernatural elements, and Aboriginal history that is so compelling here. anastasia m. collins

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)