About This Book
Reach for this book when your middle schooler is feeling emotionally isolated or struggling to process the compounding layers of family loss and change. Isaac is a fourteen-year-old boy whose life has been upended: his father is dead, his mother is hospitalized with a nervous breakdown, and he has been moved to a gloomy new home with a grandfather who is emotionally distant. The story uses a unique psychological hook, a mirror box used to treat phantom limb pain, to manifest Isaac's desperate need for connection into a supernatural mystery. While it contains spooky elements, it serves as a powerful metaphor for the invisible 'limbs' of a family that continue to ache long after they are gone. It is an ideal choice for the child who prefers a fast-paced, eerie thriller but needs a safe space to explore heavy themes of grief, abandonment, and the anxiety of an uncertain future.
