Circle of Secrets (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Circle of Secrets Deborah Stevenson Little, Kimberley Griffiths . Circle of Secrets. Scholastic, 2011. [336p]. ISBN 978-0-545-16561-7 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 4-7. It's been a year since Mirage, Shelby's mother, walked out on the family; now Shelby reluctantly must move in with Mirage in her little house in the Louisiana bayou while her father travels. Eleven-year-old Shelby finds it hard to make friends at her new school, where she's an outsider both because of her town origins and her mother's reputation as the local traiteur, or healer, or, less kindly, swamp witch. Shelby's one solace is her friendship with bubbly Gwen, a girl she meets in the cemetery, but as they grow closer, Shelby is increasingly puzzled by Gwen's connections to Mirage and her vagueness about her family's whereabouts. As readers will guess well before Shelby does, Gwen is the ghost of Mirage's childhood playmate, but this is a largely unspooky ghost story; the anxiety here is all about Shelby's relationship with her mother (in fact, her first reaction to Gwen's connections to Mirage is keen jealousy). This is still a highly atmospheric tale, but the atmosphere isn't drawn from the supernatural element but the daily-life details of the bayou, with Cajun-inflected dialect and travel by rowboat the norm and Mirage's house populated by a tame owl and opossum. The result is a ghost story suitable for youngsters with low freakout thresholds and a solid interest in domestic realism, and readers will revel in the literary journey through a rare and unusual way of life. [End Page 213] Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois