Book Description
for Lost Soul, Be at Peace by Maggie Thrash
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
In this graphic memoir by the author of Honor Girl, Maggie is depressed and failing classes at her expensive private high school. Her coming out as a lesbian at school has been met mostly with silence. She and her parents are not close; her mom alternates between ignoring and criticizing her, and her dad, a federal judge, is an emotionally distant workaholic. Distraught over the disappearance of her beloved cat Tommi, Maggie searches for Tommi inside her family’s 13-room home and instead finds the ghost of a boy named Tommy. Tommy spends time with Maggie at home and even accompanies her to her father’s courtroom for a day, where she realizes just how much power her dad has over other people’s lives. Later, when her father’s mother dies, Maggie and Tommy (who is invisible to everyone but Maggie) accompany Maggie’s father to his old, decrepit childhood home in Alabama, where a light is finally shed on his rather mysterious past…and other things. This tightly woven, artfully told memoir uses the ghost to illuminate how past experiences—and past selves—influence and contribute to individuals’ growth and development. (Age 13 and older)
CCBC Choices 2019. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2019. Used with permission.