The lifters

Carousel is a sad, impoverished little town. Having just moved there, 12-year-old Gran (short for Granite) meets an acerbic girl, Catalina, who speaks to him only once. But that's enough for him to become obsessed with her. Following her one day, he discovers a warren of tunnels under the town, where Catalina's job is to prop up the surface buildings with poles and other weight-bearing objects. A lifter, she reluctantly allows Gran to help her with the work, but they soon find themselves in terrible danger from an evil force called the Hollows, which is creating huge sinkholes everywhere in town. Will the kids be able to foil the force before the entire town is destroyed? After a somewhat slow start, Eggers' story moves along briskly, thanks to mounting suspense and bite-size chapters. Gran and Catalina are engaging characters, though one wonders how two kids could manage to execute the Herculean tasks they do. The premise is original, though, and always intriguing. Some reservations aside, the book is sure to attract a sizable audience of Eggers fans.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2018 Booklist

After his father is offered a new job, 12-year-old Granite Flowerpetal and his family move into the house built by Granite's great-great-grandfather in the "hilly hamlet" of Carousel. Since its famous carousel factory shut down, the town has seen better days. Neighbors squabble over local ordinances and there's a general malaise in the air. Still, Granite looks forward to a fresh start at a new school, where he plans to try out his new nickname, Gran-"easily understood, easily spelled." His outspoken classmate, Catalina Catalan, however, questions his choice of moniker: "Don't you realize Gran sounds like you're a grandmother?" Content with just being noticed, Gran considers Catalina a potential friend, and when he sees her open a doorway in a hillside, he joins her in a secret, underground mission. In his latest offering for young readers, Eggers (Her Right Foot) successfully blends the real and the fantastic in unexpected ways as Gran and Catalina face a mysterious, hurricane-like force that thrives from their fellow townspeople's sadness and fear. Black-and-white drawings by Renier (Spiral-Bound) lend a retro storybook feel to this cozy contemporary novel about lifting spirits and rebuilding community through teamwork and imagination. Ages 8-12. Author's agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. Illustrator's agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Gran did not want to move to Carousel. But his parents had little choice. His father, a mechanic, had not had steady work in many years, for reasons unknown to Gran. His mother had had an accident when Gran was young, and was now in a wheelchair. His parents never explained quite what happened, and Gran didn't feel right asking. After a while, when people asked Gran about his mother's condition, he just said, "She was born that way." It was the easiest way out of the conversation. But he remembered when she walked. He remembered that she had once worked as an artist in museums, making the animals in ­dioramas look realistic. He had a foggy memory of standing, as a toddler, in an African savannah with her as she touched up the whiskers of a cheetah. That was before the wheelchair. Then Gran's sister Maisie was born, and his mother hadn't returned to work. Gran's father had built a studio for her, enclosing their deck and filling it with easels and paint and worktables, everything the right height. But Gran couldn't remember her ever using it. "My art is them now," Gran heard her say to his father one day. At the time, Gran didn't know what that meant. Something of her talents had rubbed off on Gran. When he was four, his mother began giving him a certain kind of clay, available in hundreds of colors, that hardened when baked in the oven. With this clay, and with his mother's gentle guidance, he formed penguins and dolphins and narwhals--­sea creatures who shared the Atlantic with him. There was a distinct satisfaction in taking a block of blue clay and warming it, rolling it into a ball, then pinching it here to make a fin, squeezing there to make a tail--­and suddenly, from a blue ball there was something like a whale. Gran made animals from clay when he was happy, when he was sad, and especially when his parents fought. He was never sure what would happen when his parents argued, how loud it would get or how long it would go on, but he always knew that in twenty minutes, as their voices faded from his mind, he could make a ball of colored clay look like an orca, a manatee, a hammerhead shark. As he worked, Maisie usually watched. "Doesn't look like anything," she would say as he first rolled the clay. He would pinch and pull, and she would say, "Looks like a snake. Snakes are boring." Then he would twist and poke, and something different, and specific, would emerge, and always Maisie acted like it was a miracle. "How'd you do that?" she would ask, her voice awed. Gran liked nothing better in the world than to hear his sister's voice awed. It gave him immeasurable strength for reasons he could not know. Excerpted from The Lifters by Dave Eggers All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.