Anatomy of Lost Things by Shawn K. Stout (review)

Reviewed by: Anatomy of Lost Things by Shawn K. Stout Cassidy Russell Stout, Shawn K. Anatomy of Lost Things. Peachtree/Holiday House, 2024 272p Trade ed. ISBN 9781682635872 18. 99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781682636817 11. 99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 4-6 When her mother comes home after leaving unannounced 186 days before, eleven-year-old Tildy and her family are walking on eggshells in hopes that she doesn't leave again. Meanwhile, her classmate Leon has realized he can converse with the dead, and the messages he hears (and sometimes pretends to hear) from his recently deceased grandfather are the only things keeping his grandmother out of the Depths of Despair. Living out of a camper with her mother, twelve-year-old Nell is mourning the death of her other mother in a climbing accident and the loss of their family home in a hurricane. When Tildy loses her mother's necklace, she's convinced her family will fall apart again, but the three kids team up, combining the powers of seances with the powers of texting; the result, however, doesn't necessarily turn up jewelry but it does allow the trio to be more honest with the adults in their lives. End Page 377 The kids' stories weave together gracefully, centering what they're dealing with individually without forcing connections or offering overly perfect endings. Stout treats the kids' fears (from disappointing a parent to cockroaches to the dark) with tenderness and brings nuance to the ways all three kids miss the adults in their lives. At its core, this is a story about children who deal with grief by taking on too much, and the adults who either blindly allow them to or outright ask them to, and what happens when those adults finally step up. For a book dealing with such weighty topics, though, it sure is fun, combining mystery and the imagined history of objects, with just a touch of communing with the dead. Copyright © 2024 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois