A gifted, fatherless boy with a communication
disorder goes on a quest to save his mother's magical bakery.
Walter
Lavender Jr. is a 12-year-old with a motor speech disorder, a brain pathway
dysfunction that prevents him from producing the words he wishes to speak.
Walter may be isolated and withdrawn, but over the years, he's learned to adapt
and cultivate an uncanny sense of perception. This turns him into a
sought-after expert at finding lost things. Despite finding other people's
prized possessions, a great sense of loss marks Walter's own life. His father,
an airline co-pilot, disappeared on a flight to Bombay just three days before
Walter was born.
While he waits for his father's return, Walter skirts bullies at school and spends time at the Lavenders, his mother's eclectic bakery in the West Village of New York City. Devoted patrons believe the desserts are magical--the angel food cake is light enough to whisk away pounds, and carefully crafted marzipan dragons breathe fire. The centerpiece and good luck charm of the success of the bakery, however, is a treasured, leather-bound manuscript--an illustrated winter's tale of lost love. When the book goes missing, the shop takes a nosedive: the magic suddenly evaporates from the desserts, business drops off, a French bakery opens a few doors away and the landlord threatens to double the rent. Fearful that all will be lost, Walter commences his 85th--and most personally challenging--case.
With straightforward prose, Sophie Chen Keller tells this insightful story from Walter's singular point of view. This is a feel-good, message-driven story about the restorative power of human connectedness and how acts of kindness can ultimately change lives.
Putnam (Penguin),
$15.00 Paper, 9780735210783, 336 pages
Publication Date: August 8, 2017
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NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the
permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf
Awareness: Reader's Edition (September 8, 2017),
link HERE