Sparrow Road

Sparrow Road is a new young adult novel from Sheila O'Connor, a former professor of mine at Hamline University and all-around positive force of nature. If you're not writing, or if you're lazy writing, Sheila will definitely let you hear it. Which is why, of course, I've been sharpening my knives in anticipation of reviewing her newest book (her last Where No Gods Came was released around 2003, so I had to wait a good long while) and repaying her the favor of dicing up HER work for once.

Sadly, she's written a strong, hard-to-attack novel in Sparrow Road, which is a about a twelve-year-old girl who spends a summer of mystery and intrigue at a writer's colony on a rambling country estate, the kind of bucolic place every writer longs to visit, with writing sheds and a code of silence until dinnertime (a pretty transparent fantasy there, Sheila!). Anyhow, Sheila doesn't need me to add to the accolades (check out this review and the several beneath it) but I would like to say that I very much admire her clear, smooth prose, which has nary a hitch, and the patient way O'Connor allows her story to build one stone (or clue) at a time.

So head to Sparrow Road, my little sparrows!