Bird Lake Moon by Kevin Henkes

You know, there are phases in children's literature in which all stories seem to have a same central theme. How many Harry Potter type stories have come out over the past few years. This summer, the theme in children's books seems to be loss, and more particularly death.
Bird Lake Moon is another book that falls into that category. The story is told in alternating chapters from the perspective of two boys, 12 year old Mitch and 10 year old Spencer. The novel starts with Mitch who moves with his mother to their grandparents house at Bird Lake after his father leaves them. Faced with being lonely, Mitch begins to create a hideaway at the abandoned neighbors house which he claims as his own. That is until the real owners (the Intruders as Mitch calls them) move back in. That is when Spencer is introduced. Through Spencer's eyes and thoughts, we learn that the family is returning to the home for the first time since the death of his older brother over eight years prior. Mitch takes exception to their return and decides to leave little tricks and pranks around the house. Events which have coincidences to Spencer's dead brother, who he thinks is haunting them. The boys eventually become friends and seem to bond together before Spencer suddenly has to move back due to his mother's inability to cope with the location of her son's death.

And that's about when the story ends. What? The novel ends with both boys wondering what each other are doing and moving on with life. Although the writing is intellectual and intriguing throughout, I'm no sure that young readers will want to stay with it until the end, and if they do, be satisfied with the anti-climatic closing. Might be a book to recommend to a reader who is trying to themselves deal with divorce or death. This story would probably be more appreciated by upper middle school students and not elementary reader males for whom it was probably most intended.
I give the novel:

Not one of my favorites as of late mainly because of the ending, or lack there of, but definitely one worth reading.
Oh goody, the bathroom door is left open, now's my chance to see just how far that roll of paper can extend before it runs out. Until next time, I'm off!

- The Reading Dachshund

Publisher: Greenwillow Books
ISBN: 978-0-06-147078-3
Price: $16.99