The Water Castle by Megan Frazer Blakemore (review)

When his father suffers a stroke, Ephraim Appledore-Smith moves with his family to Dad’s ancestral home, the Water Castle, in a tiny Maine town. The town is also rumored to be home to a legendary Fountain of Youth, searched for tirelessly, but seemingly fruitlessly, by Ephraim’s own ancestors. Desperate to help his dad, Ephraim becomes convinced that the magic water exists and begins his own search, locating secret tunnels under the castle as well as a hidden laboratory used by his eccentric ancestor, Orlando Appledore. Alternating with Ephraim’s story is young Nora Darling’s tale from the early 1900s, as she assisted Orlando with his search and his experiments with the water. The novel suffers from an overload of plot threads (besides the quest for immortality, there’s also an old family rivalry subplot and a class project about the North Pole), and many of the characters are underdeveloped. Middle child Ephraim is credible in his longing to excel like his siblings and in his urgent desire to help his father recover, though; the mysteries surrounding the water are compelling and the twist of science involved is original. The central question of the water’s efficacy is ultimately answered, while a few elements are left intriguingly unresolved. Although not on the level of Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting (BCCB 2/76), this would make a natural pairing with that classic title.