The Worlds We Leave Behind

December 19, 2022
Previous collaborators Harrold and Pinfold (The Song from Somewhere Else) probe the morality of vengeance in a multi-timeline fantasy with Twilight Zone vibes. When impulsive Hex Patel injures much younger Sascha, who inadvertently knocked him over on a swing, his disappointed best friend, Tommo, alerts Sascha’s family, and her older sister, Maria, retaliates with her fists. Enraged and facing parental consequences, Hex retreats to the woods, finding a cottage where an old woman offers to exact revenge on his behalf by “excising” Maria from the world. But “he hadn’t been made the only offer,” and Maria acts first, eliminating Hex from life and memory. When the old timeline’s events reoccur at Tommo’s hands, and the revenge cycle begins anew, Tommo’s conscience and Maria’s memories of Hex may not be enough to stop it. Cohesive, folkloric worldbuilding provides balance to off-kilter timelines, the otherworldly ambiance enhanced by Pinfold’s hazy, elongated figures and realistic landscapes. Harrold’s staccato third-person narration captures myriad physiological experiences, including anger, embarrassment, freedom, and guilt, while exploring reactions’ sometimes emotional roots. Most characters are described as having pale skin. Ages 8–12.

Starred review from January 1, 2023

Gr 5 Up- It wasn't Hex's fault the little girl followed him and his best friend Tommo into the woods and got herself hurt. Yes, he did throw the rock (Why did he do that? He doesn't know, just like he doesn't know why he does many things), but he doesn't deserve the scorn of his best friend or being attacked by the girl's sister. Just as the injustice of everything overwhelms him, Hex finds himself at a mysterious cottage where an old woman kindly offers him a chance at revenge. He can make the girl who did this to him disappear, erase her from ever existing. But what if Hex isn't the only one who has been given this offer? This delightfully creepy tale weaves the perfect mix of horror with honesty about the struggles of being human and growing up. Everyone makes mistakes, but what are the costs of purposely choosing to wrong another human being? Set in England, there are a several English references sprinkled throughout. Pinfold's stunning black-and-white illustrations bring the characters and settings frighteningly to life throughout each chapter. VERDICT Harrold delivers a world as eerie as it is true, as uplifting as it is intense in a triumph of storytelling. Recommended for purchase in all libraries serving patrons who seek complex tales about growing up.-Emily Beasley

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2023
How do individuals shape the world around them? Tommo's friend Hex is the first person to appear in this eerie illustrated tale. Hex is careless, impulsive, cognizant of the ways he often acts without thinking. On Monday, when a younger child tagging after the boys falls out of a tree and breaks an arm, her big sister blames them, especially Hex. She succumbs to the temptation for retribution offered her by an old woman whose cottage mysteriously appears in the ancient forest nearby. The result? Hex is removed from the world entirely. On Wednesday, Tommo leaves his house in the morning with the sense that someone he knew well is simply no longer; it's as if he'd never existed. Finding his own way to the cottage, Tommo makes the horrific discovery of Hex's spiderweb-wrapped form. An official looking woman informs him of an Unauthorized Temporal Reweave and arms him with a device to remove the old woman and her timeline interference from this corner of the world--but Tommo must find the courage to use it. Pinfold's fine-lined, chiaroscuro drawings--stars against the night sky, characters' elongated faces and hands--are perfectly in tune with Harrold's reserved, unsettling narrative voice. This original work, unfolding over the course of five weekdays, is reminiscent of William Sleator's speculative fiction and will appeal to fans of Neil Gaiman's Coraline. Characters read White. Compact and disquieting: a horror story with plenty of food for thought. (Fiction. 9-13)

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 1, 2023
Beginning deceptively blandly, this tale soon slips into the uneasiness of horror and brain-teasing mystification. Best friends Hex and Tommo head to the woods to play on the rope swing over the creek. En route, little Sascha insists on joining them; through the boys' rough play, she ends up with a broken arm. Afterward, Hex's confused emotional response alienates Tommo and enrages Maria, Sascha's older sister, who beats Hex up. So far, so ordinary...but in the forest is Missus, a "short, jolly" woman and her huge dog, Leafy. Wouldn't you like to get revenge on the one who hurt you? Missus asks both Hex and Maria, separately. "We will simply persuade the world to forget them...your world will heal, reshape itself around the hole." Before he can decide, Hex himself disappears, preempted by Maria's choice. Thus we begin again in a new reality: off to the woods with his buddy Jayce is Tommo, who neither quite recalls nor quite forgets having had a best friend named Hex. "He could remember remembering, but couldn't remember exactly what he'd remembered about this other, missing kid." In this new world things are disconcertingly different from or disconcertingly resonant with Tommo's memories. Harrold's (The Song from Somewhere Else, rev. 5/17) creepy tale takes off with this altered world, uncanny in its innocuous but distressing changes ("Mum used to keep cactuses, but now there's not a single cactus in the house," Maria cries); that unsettling sense of the uncanny swells to out-and-out terror as Tommo makes his own visit to Missus. Pinfold's chiaroscuro-esque, surreal illustrations raise the stakes on the crone from Disney's Snow White: this isn't for the timid. Deirdre F. Baker

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from February 15, 2023
Grades 5-8 *Starred Review* Literal otherworldliness is a hallmark of Harrold's works, and in this novel, it takes the form of an old woman (Missus), her huge dog (Leafy), and their cabin in a thin strip of woods. Elsewhere in the woods, three kids are playing on an old rope swing. The two boys, Hex and Tommo, are inseparable, and they're both annoyed when little-kid Sasha invites herself along to the swing. A trickle of meanness enters Hex as Sasha takes her turn, prompting him to throw a stone that knocks the girl into the rocky creek bed below with a painful crunch. This is the key event that brings Missus and Leafy into the lives of Hex, Tommo, and Sasha's furious older sister, Maria. They find the old woman in different ways and at different points in time, but to each she makes the same offer: she and Leafy can give them justice or revenge by snipping a problematic person out of the world, erasing their entire existence. Harrold's narrative spans only five days and packs a philosophical punch as the characters ponder the consequences of their choices. Still, there's plenty of action, and the sinister atmosphere gets a fantastic visual boost from Pinfold's realistic, grayscale illustrations, which creep along page borders and occasionally fill consecutive spreads. Taken together, it's haunting stuff. An impeccably crafted, cerebral fantasy.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 1, 2023
Beginning deceptively blandly, this tale soon slips into the uneasiness of horror and brain-teasing mystification. Best friends Hex and Tommo head to the woods to play on the rope swing over the creek. En route, little Sascha insists on joining them; through the boys' rough play, she ends up with a broken arm. Afterward, Hex's confused emotional response alienates Tommo and enrages Maria, Sascha's older sister, who beats Hex up. So far, so ordinary...but in the forest is Missus, a "short, jolly" woman and her huge dog, Leafy. Wouldn't you like to get revenge on the one who hurt you? Missus asks both Hex and Maria, separately. "We will simply persuade the world to forget them...your world will heal, reshape itself around the hole." Before he can decide, Hex himself disappears, preempted by Maria's choice. Thus we begin again in a new reality: off to the woods with his buddy Jayce is Tommo, who neither quite recalls nor quite forgets having had a best friend named Hex. "He could remember remembering, but couldn't remember exactly what he'd remembered about this other, missing kid." In this new world things are disconcertingly different from or disconcertingly resonant with Tommo's memories. Harrold's (The Song from Somewhere Else, rev. 5/17) creepy tale takes off with this altered world, uncanny in its innocuous but distressing changes ("Mum used to keep cactuses, but now there's not a single cactus in the house," Maria cries); that unsettling sense of the uncanny swells to out-and-out terror as Tommo makes his own visit to Missus. Pinfold's chiaroscuro-esque, surreal illustrations raise the stakes on the crone from Disney's Snow White: this isn't for the timid.

(Copyright 2023 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)