The Chaos

Gr 9 Up—Scotch, a Toronto high school student of Jamaican, white, and black heritage, struggles to find her identity. She recently changed schools because of bullying, her parents are strict to the point of alienating her, her older brother recently got out of prison, she just went through a bad breakup, and the head of her dance team is preparing to kick her off for missing too many practices. As if this weren't enough, Scotch has to hide the fact that she is seeing mysterious floating horse heads (which she calls the Horseless Head Men) and that her body is becoming covered in rubbery black spots. Then The Chaos descends, heralded by a volcano popping up in the middle of Lake Ontario, and suddenly everyone is seeing the Horseless Head Men, and much, much more. Mythical creatures like Sasquatch are casually walking around, escalators are looping around like Escher drawings, and Baba Yaga's chicken house is terrorizing the streets. Frantic to find her missing brother, Scotch discovers that her black spots are growing so quickly that soon she will be unrecognizable. The action moves quickly but lacks grounding. There is no cause given for the global chaos, or why Scotch was affected before everyone else. Hints that The Chaos is somehow connected to her identity struggle render the worldwide devastation, and therefore much of the plot, meaningless. Hopkinson shows a strong understanding of how questions of identity and sexuality loom in Scotch's life, but this tale of magical realism gone haywire will leave most readers scratching their heads.—Eliza Langhans, Hatfield Public Library, MA