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Reviewed by:
  • One Came Home by Amy Timberlake
  • Deborah Stevenson
Timberlake, Amy. One Came Home. Knopf, 2013. [272p]. Library ed. ISBN 978-0-375-96925-6 $19.99 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-375-86925-9 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-375-98934-6 $10.99 R* Gr. 5–8.

Thirteen-year-old Georgy Burkhardt refuses to believe that the tragic remains being buried in the graveyard of her small Wisconsin town really belong to her beloved and runaway older sister, Agatha. Determined to find Agatha, Georgy sets out during a hot summer in 1871 to follow the trail, armed with her grandfather’s rifle and a horse—well, a mule—belonging to Billy McCabe, Agatha’s former beau. Unfortunately, she’s also accompanied against her will by Billy, who won’t let her go alone and who’s long been a teasing thorn in Georgy’s side. As Georgy’s search continues, she begins to find Billy a solid companion, but she also finds an intertwined collection of secrets and a considerable amount of trouble. Timberlake builds original plotting atop the classic foundation of a journey, flirting with clichés only to subvert or ground them. Readers won’t be sure whom to believe about Agatha, and they may also see, as Georgy does not, how much Georgy’s dream of running the family store with her sister is Agatha’s nightmare. Georgy’s narration is innocent, eager, and rich with appropriate small-town period formality, moving smoothly from comic adolescent petulance to raw plainspoken loss: “There is nothing so final as turning around.” The book additionally brings to atmospheric life the deluge of the passenger pigeon flocks, roosting in colossal numbers and supporting an entire industry of “pigeoners,” and also vividly portrays the foreboding tinderdry Midwestern setting, where drought crisped the land so that the slightest spark could—and does—ignite the countryside. With its historical backdrop, enjoyable narrative, and endearing heroine, this will appeal both to fans of Philbrick’s The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg (BCCB 1/09) and Kelly’s The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (BCCB 7/09).

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