Boo

Starred review from February 16, 2015
Short story writer Smith (Bang Crunch) delivers a splendidly confident debut novel, a fantasy of emotional healing in a unique afterlife. In 1979, 13-year-old Oliver “Boo” Dalrymple is an intelligent but socially awkward outcast, born with a defective heart. One day, he’s at his school locker, getting taunted by the school bullies as usual, and then he suddenly finds himself in the afterlife, presumably dead from his condition. This afterworld is an unusual one, however, populated entirely by other 13-year-olds who died in the U.S.A., and when his acquaintance Johnny joins him a few weeks later, Boo discovers that he and Johnny were actually shot by an unknown fellow classmate. Along with a number of new friends, Johnny and Boo set out on a quest to discover who shot them and investigate the rumors of portals that would allow them back to the world of the living. Smith smoothly develops his vision of an afterlife in which a theoretical god supplies random items from the living world, electronics run without power, and kids are left to their own devices. The story is never about providing solid answers, but readers who appreciate that sort of ambiguity will find that the emotional payoffs are both surprising and moving.

March 1, 2015
This first novel, a fugitive from the teen bookshelves, combines a school shooting and a whimsical afterlife in a touching tale of what friendship and growing up can mean. Oliver Dalrymple, whose pallor earns him the nickname Boo, is a precocious 13-year-old at Helen Keller Junior High when he suddenly dies in front of his locker. He reports this on the first page of what will be his book-length effort to explain the afterlife to his parents. Smith (Bang Crunch: Stories, 2008) has fun presenting the slightly off or odd details of a limbo called Town where those who have "passed" are gathered with others of the same age-13 in Boo's case-to live in "three-story red-brick dormitories," work simple jobs, and abide by a few rules before entering another phase after 50 years. It's Lord of the Flies without pig slaughter and privation: there are regular shipments of food, clothing, and other needs provided by a deity whom Boo annoyingly calls Zig. A plot of sorts develops when Johnny Henzel, another kid from Helen Keller, appears and Boo learns that both of them were victims of a student with a gun whom they dub Gunboy. Memories can be fuzzy in Town, so there's more than one unreliable narrator at work here. A hunt for Gunboy ensues in which self-discovery plays a major role. The novel has an understated message about gun control and bullying and is a fine portrayal of Boo's emergence from the carapace of fear, distrust, and solitude he grew for himself in his short life. Smith is often amusing in cute and clever ways, but there's a slyer, more satisfying humor in the twins Tim and Tom Lu, who owe something to Lewis Carroll's Tweedledum and -dee. The book's often earnest trip over the rainbow could have used more of that.

January 1, 2016

Topics readers have come across before-school shootings, fictional representations of the afterlife, murder mysteries-come together in this wildly imaginative read. When 13-year-old Oliver dies at school, he's not that surprised. He had a hole in his heart, which he figured would kill him one day. He is surprised to discover what the afterlife has in store. He gets to inhabit a subdivision of heaven called Town, where only 13-year-olds live. The denizens stay 13 for about 50 years, after which they disappear-to who knows where. Oliver is just getting the lay of the land when Johnny, a kid he knew from school, shows up. Johnny tells Oliver it wasn't his holey heart that killed him. They were both shot at school, and he thinks that the shooter is in Town, too. With the help of their friends, they go searching for the killer. Debut author Smith builds a world in Town-with rules and its own internal logic-in which readers will become completely immersed. Oliver and Johnny are flawed, leaving teens constantly wondering if one or both of them are unreliable. There are also clever details-some that will be obvious to teens, such as Oliver and Johnny's dorm being named for Frank and Joe Hardy-but others are more subtle. Subsequent reads will likely turn up even more layers of foreshadowing. A wholly satisfying if not wholly happy ending makes this a total package. VERDICT A fascinating read for any teen or adult willing to suspend disbelief and enter Town.-Jamie Watson, Baltimore County Public Library

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2015
One minute 13-year-old Oliver Boo Dalrymple is standing in front of his locker at Helen Keller Junior High School reciting the periodic table to himself (yeah, he's that kind of boy); the next, he wakes up in bed in a place called Town. Boo quickly learns that he has died and has come to in a sort of heaven, a place where there are no trees, no insects, no animals, and where everybody isand remains13 years old. In short order, Johnny, another boy from his school, shows up, and it turns out that both were shot by someone they think of as Gunboy. Is it possible that the killer is also in Town? The two boys determine to find out. In the meantime, Booformerly a social pariahand Johnny have bonded and made two new friends, Thelma and Esther, who help with their quest. Presented in the form of a journal Boo is keeping for his parents, the novel is told in Boo's matter-of-fact, emotionless voice, which is oddly compelling and increasingly poignant. Though a few of its plot points will have readers scratching their heads, the story Boo tells is endlessly intriguing and entertaining as it contemplates the presenceor absenceof God, whom the kids call Zig, while revealing surprising and disturbing truths about the boys' previous lives and deaths. Fans of the offbeat will think they've died and gone to Towner, heaven.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)