Kenneth Oppel

Steve’s baby brother came home from the hospital sick (“there was something wrong with his heart and his eyes and his brain”) and needing lots of care, so his parents don’t pay much attention when Steve becomes afraid of the wasps in the backyard. He finds comfort in a recurring dream in which a compassionate voice offers to make everything better. All Steve must do is say yes to the offer, and his dream confidante will turn her promise of a healthy baby into reality. But as he learns more about the wasps that have built their nest outside baby Theo’s room, this easy fix starts to look like too sinister a bargain. Oppel’s (Airborn, rev. 7/04, and sequels; The Boundless, rev. 5/14) newest novel is a tight and focused story about the dangers of wishing things back to normal at any cost. The language is straightforward, rarely derailed by extraneous details, but the emotional resonance is deep, and Steve’s precarious interactions with the honey-voiced queen make one’s skin crawl. Klassen’s full-page black-and-white drawings—simple, but with maximum impact, in shades of light, dark, and darker