Gr 3--7--Twelve-year-old Caraway "CJ" Ames lives on the road with her fairly famous Aunt Nic, a psychic medium who tours the country, communing with "Spirit." Nic has convinced CJ that she can talk with the dead, most importantly, CJ's late mother. They live a peripatetic existence, going from town to town, with their two-man crew. Jax, a 16-year-old with pretty extreme anxiety issues, is new to their crew, and CJ is trying to teach him to drive a standard transmission. When Aunt Nic tells CJ that her mom is being drawn faraway by Spirit and won't be able to talk to her anymore, CJ goes on a quest to find a physical tether that will bring her mother back. With Jax's reluctant help, they follow Spirit's "signs," which lead CJ to find out that her aunt may not be all that she claims. CJ's anger causes her to humiliate her aunt in a very public way. While CJ's hurt and sense of betrayal are understandable, her actions are distasteful. VERDICT This can be a difficult story to listen to but Monika Felice Smith does a good job narrating. She fully embodies CJ's headstrong, take-no-prisoners attitude, Jax's insecurity, Aunt Nic's all-too-human flaws, and CJ's mother's unreliability.--B. Allison Gray, Goleta Valley Lib., CA

Twelve-year-old CJ, whose mother died when CJ was born and whose father was never in the picture, lives with her aunt Nica YouTube celebrity medium who travels the country doing psychic readings and whos trying to break into reality TV. A Hollywood producer seems to be interested; however, CJ soon discovers hes actually trying to unmask her aunt as a charlatan. At first appalled, CJ eventually becomes convinced that Aunt Nics professed ability to talk to Spirit, including CJs own dead mother, is all a fraud. After uncovering another major family secret, CJ, disillusioned and angry, agrees to help the producer humiliate her aunt in spectacular fashion. CJs budding friendship with sixteen-year-old Jax, whose uncle works on Aunt Nics crew and who suffers from anxiety, adds some welcome levity (i.e., Jaxs bad driving) and no-strings-attached companionship to a story filled with pathos and trust-shaking revelations. You think its better to tell people a half-truth theyll actually hear? Or a whole truth they wont? CJ asks Jax, torn between loyalty to the woman who raised her and anger at Aunt Nics betrayal. Graffs ruminations on life and death; faith and belief; truth, fiction, and outright lies appear throughout this page-turning story about one familys very specific (if sometimes credulity-stretching) dysfunctions. elissa Gershowitz March/April 2019 p 81(c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Because her mother allegedly died on the day she was born, and she never knew her father, CJ lives in a tour bus with her Aunt Nic, who works as a psychic medium, reconnecting her devotees with deceased loved ones. CJ likewise benefits from her aunt's "Gift," cherishing the moments when her mother talks to her, via Aunt Nic, through the auspices of "Spirit." On her 12th birthday, CJ is understandably bereft when her mother announces that she will no longer visit, since she's "being drawn Far Away"; CJ has been told that her mother can only be pulled back to Earth by a "tether," an item that the dead treasured while alive. Ostensibly guided by Spirit, CJ sets out with Jax, Aunt Nic's perspicacious teenage employee, to locate her mother's tether, a quest that involves a jumble of cryptic clues, including message-encoded octopus images and a mushroom sculpture her mother created in high school. Graff (The Great Treehouse War) nimbly crafts a credible novel from the unlikely, shaping layered characters and unforeseen plot twists while exploring issues of truth and illusion-and the emotion-infused miasma that separates the two. A genuinely moving and memorable story. Ages 8-12. Agent: Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Not every 12-year-old would enjoy homeschooling herself as she rode cross-country on her Aunt Nic's televised psychic medium tour, but CJ's no ordinary kid. She knows how to shift gears on a stick shift truck and how to navigate from Phoenix to Philadelphia, and she knows a lot about how spirit works. But when Aunt Nic, who has always been a medium for CJ to talk to her deceased mother, says her mom is being drawn Far Away and won't be around anymore, CJ decides to go on a road trip of her own in search of an object a tether to bring her mother back to Earth. The story is a genre blend of mystery and realistic family drama, with hints of magic and mysticism. Graff never shies away from difficult topics, and this is as brave as expected. It's less about spirit than about faith as a larger concept, and it includes a welcome representation of nontraditional family units; the boundaries of trust and its repair when broken; preteen independence; and the permanence of our decisions.--Becca Worthington Copyright 2019 Booklist

A voice from beyond the grave has a familiar ring to it. The spirit world may be closer than you might think.Graff tells the story of Caraway June "CJ" Ames and her life with itinerant medium Aunt Nic. More than just a psychic, Aunt Nic has grown a reputation for channeling spirits. CJ, 12, relishes Aunt Nic's gift for one big reasonAunt Nic can communicate with CJ's dead mom. Now, on the cusp of setting up a reality TV show and making her career bigger than ever, Aunt Nic reveals that her sister's spiritCJ's momhas traveled to the Far Away, meaning she is beyond communicating with. That's when CJ, with the help of always-nervous 16-year-old Jax Delgado, who's recently joined Aunt Nic's support team, launches her own adventure to lure her absent mother's spirit closer to home. Graff (The Great Treehouse War, 2017, etc.) is known for her heartwarming blend of magic and reality. However, as CJ gets closer to the truth, this story feels meaneven cruel. And CJ's reaction to the truth feels less like vindication than plain vindictiveness. Young readers may respond to the high drama of CJ's emotional roller coaster, but the high-stakes climax and ultimate resolution turn this adventure into an uncomfortable road trip with people you kinda wish you'd never met.An unusual misstep for Graff. (Fiction. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.