Something Kindred

March 1, 2024
Jericka and her mom move to her parents' hometown for the summer to take care of her dying grandmother. Seventeen-year-old Jericka had the perfect summer planned out--she was going to hang out at the beach with best friend Leslie before Leslie left for college and work on her photography portfolio for her dream school, Parsons. But now, Jericka and her mom are on their way from New Jersey to Coldwater, Maryland, because her maternal grandmother is dying. She knows only two things about her grandmother: Her name is Carol Annette, and she left Jericka's mom and uncle when they were young children. Jericka reluctantly decides to spend her summer establishing a relationship with Gram, reconnecting with her dad (who still lives in town but whom she hasn't seen since she was a baby), and photographing Coldwater. As she gets to know the town, she also grows closer to local "ghost girl" Kat. Kat says the town is haunted and that there are "echoes" lingering everywhere. As Jericka's romantic relationship with Kat blooms, she too begins to sense the spirits and feel a pull toward Coldwater. Burch lovingly explores forgiveness and memory in this novel centering Black characters that has something--from paranormal discovery to queer romance in a small town--for everyone. A moving story about home with a supernatural twist, exploring what happens to those who leave and the ones left behind. (Fiction. 14-18)

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 15, 2024
Grades 8-11 The only thing rising senior Jericka knows about her grandmother is that she abandoned her children--Jericka's mother and uncle. So Jericka doesn't understand why her mother moves them to rural Coldwater, Maryland, to take care of this almost stranger now that she's dying. Instead of a summer of fun, Jericka's days are filled with tension, trying to find her place within the complicated dynamics between her mother, her gram, and her estranged father's second family--until she meets charismatic Kat, who draws her in with smiles that hide a dark secret. Kat believes that Coldwater, founded by newly freed slaves, is haunted by echoes of those who died in the burning of the town's schoolhouse long ago. On a hunt to document these ghosts for a photography project, Jericka stirs up a past town residents want to forget. Black, bisexual Jericka is an appealing and empathetic character, and her flirtatious romance with Kat builds naturally. In an otherwise realistic tale, Burch insightfully uses the echoes to highlight how trauma must be seen and acknowledged to begin healing.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 25, 2024
Seventeen-year-old Jericka is a budding Black photographer in New Jersey who dreams of attending Parsons for college. Her plans to spend the summer completing her admissions application and avoiding her boyfriend as he prepares to head to Howard are dashed when Jericka’s flighty mother drags her to her hometown of Coldwater, Md. There, the grandmother Jericka has never known, who abandoned Jericka’s mother and uncle as children, is dying of cancer. In Coldwater, Jericka’s understanding of her own past is uprooted when she’s reunited with the absentee father she hasn’t seen in 14 years. She is further shaken by a local lesbian teen known for communing with “echoes” of Coldwater’s restless dead, who compels Jericka to rethink her floundering relationship back home. As Jericka confronts long-buried feelings of abandonment and stagnation, compassion proves the linchpin of this lightly romantic tale of reconciliation with family and self. In an emotionally charged debut that’s both bracing and sentimental, Burch composes an intimate generational portrait of a family of Black women who are tethered by their roots and grappling with the painful and permanent consequences of their efforts to break free from their histories. Ages 12–up.

June 14, 2024

Gr 9 Up-Jericka Walker's summer vacation is not what she expected. Hoping to hang out with her friends the summer before senior year, she finds out that she and her mother will be instead taking care of her dying grandmother in Coldwater, MD. Jericka has never met Gram, who abandoned Jericka's mother and uncle when they were children. The teen is not excited to be spending the summer in the small town, but living with family is also not what she expects. She learns a lot when she visits with her father, stepmom, and half-siblings. Jericka learns about Gram and her mother and their shared tendencies to run away. Then she meets a romantic interest, Kat, also known as the "Ghost Girl" and finds out that she too can see the apparitions or "echoes" that Kat sees. Jericka settles into the town and showcases Coldwater's people and places in her senior photography portfolio. Burch's gothic coming-of-age YA debut will appeal to teens with an appetite for the paranormal. VERDICT This would be a welcome addition to high school libraries.-Nancy Hawkins

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