Bright Shining World

Gr 9 Up–Wallace Cole has attended 14 different high schools, uprooted by his dad, who works for a powerful energy company. Their new town, North Homer, NY, had an outbreak of “hysteria” that is affecting teens near the energy plant. Now, in addition to being the perpetual nomadic new kid, Wallace has to worry about some weird sickness. When the student council president, Megan Rose, tells him to pay attention to the trees, Wallace notices there is something not quite right with the trees, and the town itself. Wallace starts seeing visions of his dead mother, and witnessing a town go mad. When he finally figures out what is going on, is it too late to fight for the souls of his community? This book might be classified as a little bit horror, or sci-fi, or fantastic realism. Wallace is an unreliable narrator and most of the story is spent wondering if perhaps he will wake up like Alice from a dream of Wonderland. For the majority of the story, the teens’ visions aren’t explained, and the ending feels like an afterthought. Characters’ appearances and backgrounds are largely unspecified.