I am so excited today to be part of the blog tour for this spooky, twisty brand-new middle grade book, THE IN-BETWEEN by Rebecca K.S. Ansari. Thanks to Walden Pond Press for the invitation and the review copy of the book!
ABOUT THE BOOK
A dark, twisty adventure about the forgotten among us and what it means to be seen, from the acclaimed author of The Missing Piece of Charlie O’Reilly.
Cooper is lost. Ever since his father left their family three years ago, he has become distant from his friends, constantly annoyed by his little sister, Jess, and completely fed up with the pale, creepy rich girl who moved in next door and won’t stop staring at him. So when Cooper learns of an unsolved mystery his sister has discovered online, he welcomes the distraction.
It’s the tale of a deadly train crash that occurred a hundred years ago, in which one young boy among the dead was never identified. The only distinguishing mark on him was a strange insignia on his suit coat, a symbol no one had seen before or since. Jess is fascinated by the mystery of the unknown child— because she’s seen the insignia. It’s the symbol of the jacket of the girl next door.
As they uncover more information— and mounting evidence of the girl’s seemingly impossible connection to the tragedy—Cooper and Jess begin to wonder if a similar disaster could be heading to their hometown.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebecca lives in a very loud house in Minneapolis with her husband, four boys, and her seriously massive pets. After twelve years as an ER doctor, she shed her scrubs to write magical and mysterious worlds for middle-grade readers. She is drawn to any story that evokes, “Please, Mom! Just one more chapter!” and she strives to craft the same. Rebecca was the winner of the Minnesota SCBWI Mentorship for 2015. When she isn’t writing, you can find her biking, cooking or escaping “up north” with family, friends, and a stack of good books.
PHOTO CREDIT: PIXEL DUST
The In-Between by Rebecca
K. S. Ansari.
Walden Pond Press, 2021. ISBN 978-0062916099.
ARC kindly provided by the publisher for review purposes.
MY TAKE
Cooper has been angry with everyone in his life and hating himself ever since his father left to start a new family. His friends’ invitations and his little sister’s hopefulness only make him feel more isolated and broken. More than anything, he wants to go back to the way things were before. Failing that, any kind of distraction would be good. He already dislikes the girl in the recently renovated house across the street, who is always staring, but won’t talk to him. When his sister Jess notices that the crest on her private school uniform is the same as that on an unidentified child from a train crash 100 years earlier, he both welcomes the mystery and is instantly suspicious.
As the story unfolds, it gets increasingly creepy, even as we learn more of Cooper’s history with his now-absent father and with Jess, whose diabetes Cooper helps to manage. The tension that builds is intimately intertwined with Cooper’s inner journey, away from the intense pain of the opening, and the ending has multiple twists that I didn’t see coming. Though I felt part of the mystery was left unsolved, the ending was still satisfying enough that I’m guessing most readers won’t notice or care. Give this one to kids who love stories of magic in the real world, spooky mysteries, or who are struggling themselves with reality right now.
TOUR SCHEDULE
Blog Tour 1/27-2/2
January 27 
January 28
January 29
January 30
February 1 
February 2
alibrarymama 
I’ve been into truly creepy middle grade reads lately. Sounds like this one would be a great fit!
I bet it would!