ALA Booklist (Wed Jul 06 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Kirchmeier's debut middle-grade novel is an eerie slow burn that will leave readers distraught but satisfied. During a routine rooftop seedpod-propeller-dropping competition between 11-year-old amateur birdwatcher Ben and his older brother, the sky suddenly darkens and the power goes out in their small town of Griever's Mill. When the sky clears slightly, the town realizes, to its horror, that two of its citizens have been turned into what appears to be glass. When they turn on the news, they realize that this phenomenon is occurring all over the world. As more and more people turn into glass and sometimes shatter, Ben notes that the local sparrows seem to have disappeared, as if they sensed what was going to happen. What follows is a tense narrative that is tough to define as any one genre, as the world determines a supernatural cause for the phenomenon and prepares a solution. This gripping novel trusts its young readers to handle a conclusion that raises more questions than it answers.

Kirkus Reviews (Wed Jul 06 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

When a bizarre plague strikes the world, the stakes for one boy could not be more personal in this debut coming-of-age novel from a Canadian author.It starts the summer Ben is 11; sudden dark clouds appear, and millions of random adults turn to obsidian glass. As panic and chaos spread, passionate birder Ben worries mostly for his own family, about the town bullies, and over the inexplicably missing local sparrows. But after a compelling, mysterious Voice on the radio enlists the world into a radical response, Ben must decide where his loyalties belong. His first-person narration authentically conveys the painful confusion of a sensitive child coping with adult tragedies. Removing access to computers and cellphones turns his small rural home into an oddly old-fashioned Everytown, albeit one with little scope for women—Ben's mentally fragile mother is the only notable female character. A Stranger Things-like tone effectively conveys the creeping dread of a hapless microcosm trapped within a supernatural end of days. Unfortunately, despite the intimate family drama and devastating losses, there is a frustrating lack of resolution: What really caused the "glassification"? Who was the Voice? What did the birds have to do with it? Along with the more compassionate but much less innocent Ben, readers learn only that "life simply went on." Characters are default white.An interesting but ultimately unsatisfying experiment from a writer worth watching. (Horror. 8-12)

School Library Journal (Wed Jul 06 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Gr 6-9 Eleven-year-old Ben Cameron describes the summer when a strange phenomenon strikes his northern farming town and the rest of the world. Dark clouds temporarily cover the sky, a few adults in each community turn into obsidian statues, and crows appear above the "glassified" remains before flying away. As the days wear on, the darkness becomes permanent, more grownups are lost, and an anonymous radio preacher suggests both a cause and a terrible solution. "Foreboding" doesn't even begin to cover the tone of this debut novel, where the protagonist's relatives freeze and then shatter to pieces and scientists have no rational explanation for the events. Ben is a bit of a scientist himself; as a birder and budding naturalist, he eventually adopts an occult theory about the disappearance of the sparrows that once surrounded his home. Strong prose and carefully selected details elevate this horror story above most others in the genre. The mystery of the "glass plague," the constant threats to Ben and his family, and the fast-moving plot make the book hard to put down. The deaths of several beloved adults, a (much-regretted) episode of whiskey-drinking, and an ambivalent ending make it better suited for middle schoolers than middle graders closer to the protagonist's age. VERDICT The most frightening young YA fantasy since Kenneth Oppel's The Nest . Sure to be popular with readers seeking a truly scary story. Beth Wright Redford, formerly of Richmond Elementary School Library, VT