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Summary
Summary
When her desperately ill older brother insists that she take him into their mysterious backyard garden, designed by their quantum physicist great uncle, fourteen-year-old Susan discovers that things are not always what they seem.
Author Notes
William Sleator was born on February 13, 1945 in Harve de Grace, Maryland. In 1967, he received a BA in English from Harvard University. He mainly wrote science fiction novels for young adults. His first novel, Blackbriar, was published in 1972. He wrote more than 30 books including House of Stairs, Interstellar Pig, The Green Futures of Tycho, Strange Attractors, The Spirit House, The Boy Who Couldn't Die, and The Phantom Limb. His picture book, The Angry Moon, won a Caldecott Award in 1971. He died on August 3, 2011 at the age of 66.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-10-Teenagers Susan and Gary live in the house that has belonged to the family for generations. Now Gary has contracted a disease that has him confined to a wheelchair and traveling to the hospital regularly for transfusions. Susan is unwillingly spending her summer vacation pushing her brother through the garden and woods of their peculiar estate. Gary has been reading about quantum physics, a subject in which Great-Uncle Arthur won an international prize many years earlier. He is also the one largely responsible for the creation of the garden and just possibly the maze that no one has ever seen except from one window in the house. Gary is convinced that his illness has somehow triggered a quantum event that is responsible for the bizarre changes he and his sister are finding each day. He also seems to be getting better after each visit to the garden and so Susan finds herself torn between her fear of it and her fear for her brother's life. Sleator is a master of suspenseful science fiction and that mastery is evident here. The action is slow at first, but as the garden begins to change, the pace picks up correspondingly. Ultimately Susan must brave the maze on her own when Gary is rushed to the hospital. The twist at the end is entirely logical (if anything about quantum can be) and entirely shocking. Well-drawn characters and a believable story will catch and hold Sleator's fans and make new ones. Another solid entry from a deservedly popular author.-Elaine Fort Weischedel, Milton Public Library, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Sleator (The Boy Who Couldn't Die) turns one of modern science's most puzzling fields into fodder for suspense, with mixed results, in this novel narrated by 14-year-old Susan. Her brother, 16-year-old Gary, recently became ill and is confined to a wheelchair; he ponders quantum physics and tries to spend as much time outdoors in his family's enormous garden as he can, for which he needs Susan's help. One afternoon, the pair gets diverted while returning from the pond in the garden, and Susan becomes convinced that the garden paths are moving. Gary explains that it is a "quantum garden," one in which the odd and unpredictable rules of quantum physics play out on a large scale ("The basic matter of the world is complete craziness... all of life, all of the universe is governed by this uncertainty, this craziness," says Gary). This idea leads to the probability of multiple universes, including the possibility that in one or more of those universes, Gary is not sick. The story takes a confusing turn when brother and sister spot versions of themselves in the garden ("Just get away from them. If we meet up with ourselves, it will be like matter and anti-matter-we'll wipe ourselves out," Gary explains). Sleator's foreword lays out the principles he explores, and he uses his complex subject to frame some interesting questions. But unlike many of his other novels, the plot trumps the characterization here, and the narrative unfortunately comes off as more frivolous than compelling. Ages 12-16. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
A discussion of quantum mechanics sets the stage for fourteen-year-old Susan and her older brother, Gary, to explore the possibility that they can enter a parallel world and cure Gary of his debilitating illness. A creepy garden in the center of their home with a bewildering maze instigates change in both their surroundings and Gary's condition. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A summer ruined by having to cater to her brother's inexplicable illness leaves Susan friendless, bored and resentful enough to become a poster child for teen angst. But how can she know that things will get worse--much worse--and soon? Slowly, Susan and her brother Gary connect his increasingly serious weakness to disturbing events in the garden of their ancestral home--circumstances that introduce the dual concepts of quantum theory and the uncertainty principle. As in much science fiction, plot drives this book and concepts drive the plot. Susan's fearfulness and Gary's manipulative bullying ring true, adding suspense to the mix. After Sleator sets the scene, the story takes off and tension builds exponentially to a totally surprising conclusion. Although explanations of quantum events are occasionally heavy-handed, the exploits of these two teens in trouble, guided by a cat with strange abilities, will keep readers turning pages until the very end of this exploration of multiple universes. (Science fiction. 12-14) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 6-9. After a brief introduction to the uncertainty of quantum mechanics, the paradox of Schrodinger's cat, and the possibility of infinite universes, Sleator launches into a story inspired by these ideas. Fourteen-year-old Susan feels burdened by her parents' expectation that she will provide help and companionship for her older brother, Gary, an invalid who is wheelchair-bound and becoming progressively weaker. Exploring their large garden, they discover that entering the often-invisible maze at its center will enable them to travel to other times and even different versions of the present reality. When Gary insists that they search for a place where he is cured, Susan acquiesces, despite the warnings of her parents, the enigmatic gardener, and her own good sense. The three elderly relatives introduced later in the book seem sketchy in contrast to the other, well-drawn characters. However, the novel's strengths include a strong sense of place and atmosphere as well as a story with steadily mounting tension and an unexpected twist at the end. --Carolyn Phelan Copyright 2005 Booklist