Circa Now

March 24, 2014
Photography runs in 11-year-old Circa Monroe’s family: her mother shoots portraits for a living, and her father is an expert at photo restoration. As a fun aside, he also creates “Shopt” images, Photoshopping unusual additions into pictures he’s restoring, such as adding a baby, an oversize potato, and a bugle-playing beaver to an old photo of a family reunion. Circa is devastated when her father is killed in a deadly tornado strike, but a few weeks later, an amnesiac boy named Miles arrives on Circa’s doorstep with a copy of her father’s restored family reunion photo in his hand. Could Circa’s father’s Shopt images be magic, somehow able to make a Photoshopped baby become a real boy? Turner (Sway) offers a moving exploration of grief and an honest depiction of friends and family facing the hardest of times. Examples of Circa’s father’s altered images appear throughout the novel, with narrative captions that give the story a slight Miss Peregrine–meets–Harris Burdick atmosphere and add to its sense of mystery and possibility. Ages 8–12. Agent: Joanna Volpe, New Leaf Literary & Media.

April 15, 2014
Circa, 11, and her father have nearly always engaged in a clever game they call Shopt. Since his job is restoring old photos using Photoshop, the game is a natural. He inserts unexpected objects into conventional images and then crafts funny stories to explain the bizarre photos--which, happily, are enticingly sprinkled throughout the novel. After he dies in a tragic accident, Circa's mother, who has been depressed for many years, has trouble coping--and Circa begins to encounter little clues that the Shopt images may contain a bit of magic. Do the pasted-in objects actually take on an existence of their own, and can that explain the sudden appearance at their doorstep of a young teen boy named Miles, who has no memory but a highly coincidental connection to her father's death? Or maybe Circa's just imagining the possibilities as she navigates the minefield of her own grief. She only gradually reveals her suspicions to Miles and her best friend, Nattie, who are just as tantalized as readers will be by the "fresh, sticky web of wonder" that accompanies the very chance of such magic. Sadly, it becomes clear that at least most of the coincidences can be explained by mundane reality, although there remains an alluring whiff of enchantment. Just a tinge of fantasy pervades this captivating tale of grief and acceptance and of the power of imagination. (Magical realism. 10-14)

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April 1, 2014

Gr 4-6-Teased at school, Circa is happiest in her family's photo studio, restoring photos on her father's computer. In one instant, it all changes when her dad is crushed to death by a tree during a tornado. Her father was the one who held together her mother during her bouts of deep depression; worked on a Memory Wall at the local home for dementia patients; and gave Circa a Shopt folder, a collection of silly photoshopped photos and accompanying stories. Soon after the fatal accident, the 12-year-old and her mother discover a teenage boy on their doorstep, covered with scars and holding the last picture her father worked on. He has no memory of any life before the storm, and they name him Miles. With a focus on finding out who this boy is and where he came from, her mother starts facing her anxiety and depression. Slowly, mother and daughter begin to heal with the addition of Miles in their lives. Though the premise of this book is unique, the chapters on Circa's life before the storm makes for a slow start. The inclusion of the photoshopped pictures throughout the text is clever and adds to the juxtaposition throughout the text of grief, sadness, and desperation, mixed with the laughter and happiness Circa feels about her new situation. Yet the characters seem distant instead of emotionally raw. An unusual story for a limited readership.-Clare A. Dombrowski, Amesbury Public Library, MA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2014
Circa's late father taught her to restore old photos. Then Miles shows up on her doorstep, a boy who can't remember who he is or where he's from. His only clue is the photograph he's holding--which is the very one Circa's father was delivering when he died. Turner's story is an intricate weave of grief and healing, friendship, trauma, and wishful desire.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2014
When her father is killed by a tornado while delivering an old photo he's restored, Circa is devastated. But Circa's father taught her to restore old photos herself -- as well as to "shop" them by putting comical digital twists in them -- and Circa takes comfort in continuing his work. Then Miles shows up on her doorstep, a boy who can't remember anything about who he is or where he's from. His only clue is the photograph he's holding, which is the very one Circa's father was delivering when he died. As Circa and her mother care for Miles they uncover a strange series of coincidences, and Circa begins to think the digital changes she and her father made to photographs have come to exist in real life. Does this mean she can bring her father back? Turner's story is an intricate weave of grief and healing, friendship, trauma, and wishful desire; gentle quirkiness and light humor soften the dire issues of Circa's father's death and her mother's anxiety disorder. Indeed, the book might have benefitted from a sharper, tighter prose style, but it has an intelligent, compassionate originality that gleams throughout. deirdre f. baker

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)