Starred Review Newbery-medalist MacLachlan is known for writing heart-tugging stories in spare style, as she did in Sarah, Plain and Tall? (1985). And that's what she does here as readers meet Fiona and Finn and, briefly, their psychologist father. But before the first chapter ends, Declan O'Brien is dead, hit by a truck as he swerved to avoid a toddler in the street. The family attempts to right itself, with Mrs. O'Brien continuing her course work and Fiona trying to fill in. But Finn is struggling. Thomas, a patient of Dr. O'Brien, asks if he can call Fiona for 10 minutes each week and tell her something about her father. It's Thomas who suggests Finn find someone or something to help, and it's next-door neighbor Luke who takes them to volunteer at the animal shelter. Finn's special charge is Emily, a dog whose owner has died. He takes it upon himself to figure out what Emily needs and where she belongs, and in saving Emily, he begins to save himself. None of these children seem much like real kids. In word or deed, all display wisdom far beyond their years, and Dr. O'Brien is perfection personified. Yet there's nothing cloying here, nor does this purity affect the story's emotion or the way it connects to readers. Instead, it testifies to the resilience of life. Deeply moving and uplifting in unexpected ways.

When a freak accident kills their father, Declan, the O'Brien family must discover how to heal.When Declan makes eggs, they are typically runny, but when Fiona complains, he tells her, "It's the eternal fitness of things," without any further explanation. Other phrases he loved were "Dona nobis pacem" and "often the truth is just behind the door." These and many other lovable idiosyncrasies will never be fully explained to Fiona and younger brother Finn, because as Declan drives to help one of his psychiatric patients, a child races after a ball that has rolled into the street. Declan swerves but is struck by a truck and killed instantly, off the page and in the first chapter. As the O'Brien family struggles with grief and anger, help comes in two unusual ways. First, Thomas, one of Declan's patients, calls Fiona each Monday for two minutes only and shares insights about her father. Secondly, neighbor and classmate Luke invites Fiona and Finn to go with him to a local animal rescue shelter to read to abandoned dogs. With her customary precise, spare language, infused with emotional intelligence, MacLachlan takes readers from shocked grief to a way to live again, fundamental truths dropped carefully and delicately for young readers to comprehend in their own time.Simple words make a flawless story about resilience, hope, healing, and the eternal fitness of things. (Fiction. 8-12)

Siblings Fiona and Finn grieve the sudden death of their beloved psychiatrist father with the help of Duke, the preternaturally wise boy next door; their father's former patient, Thomas; and--best of all--their daily interactions with dogs from the nearby animal shelter. With sensitivity and understanding, MacLachlan depicts the varying forms and routes that grieving can take for different people.

When a freak accident kills their father, Declan, the O'Brien family must discover how to heal.When Declan makes eggs, they are typically runny, but when Fiona complains, he tells her, "It's the eternal fitness of things," without any further explanation. Other phrases he loved were "Dona nobis pacem" and "often the truth is just behind the door." These and many other lovable idiosyncrasies will never be fully explained to Fiona and younger brother Finn, because as Declan drives to help one of his psychiatric patients, a child races after a ball that has rolled into the street. Declan swerves but is struck by a truck and killed instantly, off the page and in the first chapter. As the O'Brien family struggles with grief and anger, help comes in two unusual ways. First, Thomas, one of Declan's patients, calls Fiona each Monday for two minutes only and shares insights about her father. Secondly, neighbor and classmate Luke invites Fiona and Finn to go with him to a local animal rescue shelter to read to abandoned dogs. With her customary precise, spare language, infused with emotional intelligence, MacLachlan takes readers from shocked grief to a way to live again, fundamental truths dropped carefully and delicately for young readers to comprehend in their own time.Simple words make a flawless story about resilience, hope, healing, and the eternal fitness of things. (Fiction. 8-12)

Key relationships in her own life inspired this characteristically taut and resonant novel by Newbery Medalist MacLachlan (Sarah, Plain and Tall). Life as Fiona has known and loved it comes to a screeching halt over runny eggs one morning when Fiona-s psychologist father-her guiding light, singer of -Dona Nobis Pacem- and player of driveway basketball-dies in a car accident after swerving to avoid hitting a child. Since her overwhelmed mother has been pursuing a degree, it falls to Fiona to keep her suddenly withdrawn younger brother, Finn (and herself), afloat over the summer. She receives rock-solid help from Luke, a remarkably intuitive neighbor; Emma, the rescue dog to whom Finn reads and sings at the local shelter; and one of her father-s former patients, who pays the doctor-s kindness forward by calling Fiona for two minutes each week and passing on her dad-s indelible sayings (-Let the whole thing float down the river on a little boat-). MacLachlan masterfully mingles core themes in this slim volume: the power of words and song, memories and family, the mutually redemptive human-canine bond, and -the eternal fitness of things.- Ages 8-12. Agent: Rubin Pfeffer, Rubin Pfeffer Content. (Oct.)