Small Spaces by Katherine Arden (review)

Olivia "Ollie" Adler is one of the brightest sixth-graders at her school in Vermont, but since her mother's death a year ago she keeps mostly to herself and hides in her books. When she gets her hands on an old book, which tells the story of a menacing "smiling man" who tricked a nineteenth-century farmer into wagering his fate for the life of his brother, Ollie becomes obsessed; on a class trip to a nearby farm, Ollie learns that the story is real and descendants of the farmer have arranged for her whole class to be sacrificed to the smiling man to satisfy an old debt. Ollie and the unlikely friends she makes along the way—Coco, the not-as-delicate-as-she-seems city girl, and Brian, the surprisingly well-read jock—must make their way through the gloomy mist that the smiling man uses to turn his victims into scarecrows. The author skillfully keeps the details of Ollie's mom's death sparse as Ollie herself refuses to think about or discuss it with her father, classmates, or teachers, but Ollie remembers her mother fondly as the bravest person she ever knew. The novel's menacing fantasy world of centuries-old ghosts and children being turned into scarecrows is provocative enough, but explicit references to Narnia, Wonderland, and Cerberus of Hades make for a smart and moving account of how stories may transport but grief and loss still take a lot from us.