The Time of the Fireflies

Gr 4–6—Larissa Renaud's scar burns down the side of her face every time the doll her Mamma keeps locked in the upstairs cabinet looks at her. The angry slash reminds Larissa of her terrible accident at Bayou Bridge, the same bridge where her aunt Gwen drowned as a young girl. The scar warns Larissa not to play with or talk to any of the kids in the town who forced her off the bridge. The scar makes Larissa think that her Mamma, pregnant and anxious, doesn't think she is beautiful anymore. Then Larissa starts getting phone calls on an ancient telephone in her parents' antique store—a phone that has long been disconnected from the wall. "Trust the fireflies," the voice tells her. Believing that the message is a matter of life and death for her family, Larissa lets the fireflies swirl her across the dangerous river to travel back in time to her ancestor's rich sugarcane estate. Bouncing through the generations, Larissa begins to piece together the history of the blue-eyed heirloom doll, Anna Marie, that her mother keeps. Bought on the Island of the Dolls and infused with a powerful spirit, the doll that Larissa's great-great-grandmother stole from a servant girl became a curse for each generation thereafter. The evil doll has been at each tragic, untimely death, and Larissa soon figures out it is her Mamma and her newly born sister, Emilie, who are the next targets. Can Larissa find a way to save her family, and perhaps heal her own wounds? This is a haunting, well-constructed tale that keeps readers guessing until the end. The feel of the old bayou infuses the story and the well-developed characters fit into the landscape, moving along in a plot filled with suspense, adventure, and mystery. A perfect choice for lovers of ghost stories, historical fiction, or just a good yarn.—Clare A. Dombrowski, Amesbury Public Library, MA