Up for Grabs

April 1, 2023
A rootless teenage orphan stumbles upon a family mystery that might redefine her life. When 13-year-old Frida and her adult brother, Zac, inherit their estranged grandmother's home in Victoria, British Columbia, the two must pause their life of endless international travel and sell off her belongings. Zac digs in without a nostalgic pause, while Frida explores their new locale. She's befriended by high-energy Hazeem, another young summer visitor, and quickly meets neighborhood fixtures like auctioneer Liz, octogenarian landlord Anna, and Pierre, a longtime family friend who lives on a sailboat docked in the nearby harbor. Frida comes across a painting in a desk drawer with a false bottom. A historical mystery gradually builds--who hid the painting, who might benefit from its discovery, and is Frida in peril for having uncovered it? Though the plot is absorbing, Frida's interior experience is central. As she learns more about her family and their connections to the unearthed art, she begins to find a sense of self in the context of the place and home that her ancestors inhabited. This satisfying tale winds its way through art history and neighborhood intrigue with a reflective, relatable protagonist at its core. Descriptions of characters' race and ethnicity are for the most part minimal; Hazeem is described as Pakistani Canadian. A subtle page-turner that captures the youthful search for a tangible concept of home. (Fiction. 9-13)

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