The Song from Somewhere Else

Starred review from May 1, 2017

Gr 4-6-Strong characterizations and a good dose of spookiness are standouts in this illustrated novel. After a strange boy named Nick rescues her from bullies, Frank begins a cautious friendship with her unpopular classmate. When she hears mysterious and beautiful music coming from Nick's cellar, Frank secretly investigates. She discovers a "leechway" that acts as a door to alternate realities. Nick's nonhuman mother lives in one of them; so do creepy "stick-creatures" who seem eager to invade our world. The two kids play heroic, save-the-world roles in an action-packed climax, but there's just as much tension in the carefully paced plot that leads up to it. Third-person narration conveys Frank's inner thoughts and perceptions, revealing a tentative, flawed, but quite likable protagonist. Amusing inner dialogues with her nervous stomach show how the girl struggles with self-esteem, courage, and ethical choices. She comes through bravely against the stick-figures, but there's a different, equally satisfying triumph in a final scene where she defends a child from bullies. The eeriness builds slowly as Frank gradually learns more about the leechway. The ominous mood is aided by atmospheric black-and-white drawings that capture the shadowy menace creeping into Frank's world. VERDICT Hand to fans of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, Holly Black's Doll Bones, and other books that balance scariness and substance.-Steven Engelfried, Wilsonville Public Library, OR

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2017
Francesca "Frank" Patel's summer holiday is interrupted, first by bullies and then by a glimpse of another world. The neighborhood goons pick on Frank with escalating meanness. But the odd, large, flat-faced boy from her school whose name (Nicholas Underbridge) hints at his unusual origins--the boy everyone claims smells and no one wants to sit with--rescues her bag from a nettle field where the bullies tossed it, then takes her to his house for refuge. Nick's house, filled with his dad's colorful abstract paintings, is otherwise tidy except for two things: there is a damp, rich, earthy odor there, and Frank hears extraordinary music that fills her soul and makes her long for more. Frank's curiosity results in a frightening, nearly world-ending chain of events. Harrold gracefully tosses together hints of quantum physics, old legends, and magic-ministry-type agents. Frank's struggle to reconcile her fear of her bullies, her growing friendship with Nick, and the truth about the maker of otherworldly music are poignantly convincing and likable. Pinfold's atmospheric illustrations, darkly menacing and mysterious by turns, add to the contemporary folk-tale atmosphere. The only hints about Frank's Indian heritage are her name and a minor moment when an elderly woman asks Frank's wisecracking at-home dad if they have tuna fish "where you come from." A captivating British import. (Fantasy. 8-11)

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July 1, 2017
Grades 3-6 Francesca Frank Patel couldn't experience a worse summer. Her best friend is away, her cat is missing, and the school bully won't leave her alone. When the horrid giant of a kid Nick Underbridge rescues her and takes her to his home, Frank doesn't know what to make of him. His father is friendly, and the house is cheerful and filled with beautiful music. When she snoops behind a secret door, she discovers the source of the music: a gigantic troll, who Nick reveals is his mother, living in another world. Frank agrees to keep Nick's secret; but as their friendship develops, she realizes the secret is dangerous and could cause harm to Nick and his family, forcing her to make a difficult decision. Friendship, acceptance, trust, and decency weave their magic throughout Harrold's (The Imaginary, 2015) tale, which questions how fairy tales and fantasy find their place in our universe. Lush black-and-white illustrations by Pinfold enhance the secrecy, wonder, and mood of the story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2018
Frank (short for Francesca) discovers that outcast Nicholas Underbridge's mother is a troll-like creature who lives in a world only occasionally connected to ours. When Frank spills the secret to bullies, she puts Nick--and the whole world--at risk. Harrold has an incisive, poetic, often dryly comic way with words. Pinfold's shadowy art deepens the story's air of mystery and threat.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from May 1, 2017
When she's rescued from a gang of bullies by Nicholas Underbridge, Frank (short for Francesca) Patel is relieved but horrified. Relieved to escape; horrified that weird Nick, the school outcast, has helped her. And Nick's home life is even stranger than Frank could have imagined: when he invites her home, she hears beautiful music issuing from the basementmusic composed and played by a troll-like creature, mountainous and gray, mossy-eared and flat-faced. This is Nick's mother, a being who lives in a world only occasionally connected to ours, and from which, through an unplugged hole in the realities, Nick slipped as a baby. Even that intermittent contact is dangerous, however; and when Frank spills the secret to the bullies, she puts Nickand, she learns, the whole worldat risk. There are people out therewho are always looking for these leechways between worlds. People who'll take it and point it at some other other world. At somewhere more dangerous than where Nick's from. And it won't just be a window anymore. They'll force it open and let things out. Harrold's story smacks of fairy tale, fable, and dream. It's also rooted in familiar issues: the boring nastiness of bullies; the testing of courage. Harrold's incisive, poetic way with words, often dryly comic, enlivens even mundane descriptions; even more, it intensifies the vague darkness of his otherworldly imagery. Pinfold's shadowy art deepens the story's air of mystery and threat, at times filling double-page spreads, at times creeping in from the margins of pages to cloud the print itself. deirdre f. baker

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)