Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley (my young adult fiction example)

          A great young adult novel for both teens and adults to read as soon as possible is John Corey Whaley’s Michael L. Printz and William C. Morris award-winning book Where Things Come Back (New York: Atheneum, 2011). Seventeen year old Cullen Witter lives in a small, boring town in Arkansas. Or so he thinks. That is until the summer before his senior year of high school, when a local birdwatcher claims he has found a woodpecker believed to have been extinct since the 1940s. The sighting of the “Lazarus Woodpecker,” and the media and notoriety it brings to the town of Lily, Arkansas, causes the town to go woodpecker crazy. The woodpecker obsession spreads across the town, from woodpecker-themed children’s haircuts to a Woodpecker-themed festival. Whaley writes about the townspeople’s open attempt to cash in on their town’s newfound – and potentially short-lived – woodpecker discovery and fame in a way that reminds me of the efforts of the townspeople of Dayton, Tennessee, who in 1925 tried to cash in on the Scopes “monkey” Trial, which was held there, and its mania. (For those interested, please see Edward J. Larson’s book Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion (New York: Basic Books, 1997)). Whaley’s treatment of Lily's woodpecker mania is an example of wonderfully comedic storytelling. The reader gets the feeling that they are really in this peculiar, small southern town with Cullen and his eccentric, woodpecker-loving townspeople. 

          In the midst of his town’s hilarious, laugh-out-loud woodpecker craze, Cullen is forced to deal with some of life’s darker, sadder aspects, which causes him to see his town, his world, and his life differently than before. His cousin overdoses and his younger brother Gabriel mysteriously disappears. And while Cullen is dealing with loss in Arkansas and pondering his future, an African missionary enters the narrative who is dealing with his own loss, that of religion. On the surface these two characters and their stories appear to be too different to work in the narrative, however, Whaley skillfully weaves their stories to highlight the fact that the African missionary’s disillusionment that comes with the loss of his religion mirrors Cullen’s feelings of loss and disillusionment for his brother. Whaley shows in Where Things Come Back that people are more similar than one thinks on a first, or superficial, glance, and that people are connected to each other – like the missionary and Cullen – in unexpected yet meaningful ways. Whaley also provides his readers with the important reminder that no matter who they are or where they live that their lives are meaningful and not as small, boring, or insignificant as they may think. And all of these are powerful takeaway messages for any teen – or adult.  

--Ashley Cleeves