The Grove

Gr 9 Up–Phillips’s YA debut is a triumph in historical fiction. Pip, 15, and Sissy, 17, are as close as they can be as sisters and best friends. Sheltered, the two of them have created a symbiotic existence, surviving despite the desperate, hardscrabble circumstances of their farm life, living on an orange grove in a small Florida town in 1960 with their abusive father and alcoholic, clueless mother. The sisters are excited when a traveling carnival comes to town, where Sissy meets a slick carnival worker who lures her away from Pip and subsequently changes their lives forever. As Sissy’s personality and their relationship change for the worse, Pip turns to Silas, the hired hand who lives on their farm, for friendship and support. Phillips’s writing is vivid and thoughtful as she tackles the bonds of sisterhood and first love, poverty, and socioeconomic bigotry, producing fully formed characters and leaving no question of motivation or actions in their wake. Most characters present as white. This sits solidly next to books by Ruta Sepetys and could be likened to Delia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing.