Review by Alicia L’Archevêque
Candlewick Press, July 2023
208 pages, paperback, $24.00 CAD, 9781536224542
Middle Grade, ages 8-12
Fiction
He wasn’t making any sense, but Ava understood what it meant to want to save something you love, even if it was impossible to save.
There is something that feels sacred and a bit surreal about witnessing wildlife up close. You freeze, hold your breath, widen your eyes. With a constant connection between its natural setting and plot, Where the Water Takes Us captures that feeling and spreads it across its pages.
When her mother encounters complications with her twin pregnancy, 11-year-old Ava Amato is sent to her grandparent’s lake house. Despite spending the summer in a serene landscape, Ava is worried sick. When she encounters a dead woodpecker after a storm, she is certain that her inability to come to its aid has placed a curse on her family. Followed closely by her annoyingly chipper neighbour, Cody MacDonald, Ava desperately tries to bargain with the universe. As she whispers unspeakable “deals” to the lakeshore and grows closer to Cody despite herself, Ava stumbles upon an opportunity to appease her karma. If she can protect the two abandoned robin eggs she and Cody found, her mom and soon-to-be-born twin brothers will be okay.
I was initially drawn to this book because of my admiration for the author’s previous work. Before trying his hand at children’s literature, Alan Barillaro found great success in screenwriting, directing, and animation. I adored Piper, an Academy Award-winning short film he wrote and directed about a sandpiper facing his fears and was eager to read another bird-centred story crafted by the same mind. I admire an artist who masters many mediums. Just as I’d hoped, the wholesome and simple quality of Barillaro’s work transfers from the screen to the page.
Ava’s character development and the evolution of her relationships were page-turners, but I especially appreciated the backdrop of the story. The landscapes show up clearly in my mind, and wildlife is deeply woven into the narrative. Deers swim across the lake, fish leap up from its surface, and robin eggs hatch – all of which hold significant ties to Ava’s search for moral peace.
About halfway through the book, I noticed subtle watercolour illustrations on the bottom of each page. Some are of Ava and Cody, both crouched and picking at worms, others are long, horizontal landscapes of the lake. Here was the best part; when I leafed through the pages steadily as you would a flipbook, the illustrations came to life! Watercolour eggs hatched, birds fluttered around the book’s margins–and eventually out of it. This was a delightful little easter egg, and it seemed oh-so-fitting for Barillaro to incorporate a nod to animation into his debut book.
Where the Water Takes Us is compelling and unique, especially in the subtle ways it integrates wildlife into Ava’s search for answers to big, karmic questions. I might’ve picked up this book a Piper fangirl, but I finished it hoping that it would be the first of many from Barillaro.
Alicia L’Archevêque loves to write, talk about movies, dance with friends, and climb trees in good company. She is an art student at UBC and a swimmer on the school’s varsity team.
YOUNG ADULTING 