âA heart-tugging and mind-bending exploration of time and possibility.â âSchool Library Journal
âA pleasure to readâŚfull of heart and imagination.â âKirkus Reviews
âZhangâs story is filled with real-world lessons on compassion and kindness with a sci-fi twistâa skillfully rendered framing device for exploring deeper issues of loss, longing, and acceptance.â âPublishers Weekly
âWith unwavering hope and focus, and new friendships with unlikely peers, the novel is entertaining and sweet.â âBooklist
In the tradition of The Thing About Jellyfish and When You Reach Me, acclaimed author Kat Zhang offers a luminous and heartbreaking novel about a girl who is convinced that an upcoming solar eclipse will bring back her dead mother.
One of the happiest memories twelve-year-old Sophia Wallace has is of her tenth birthday. Her mother made her a cake that yearâand not a cake from a boxed-mix, but from scratch. She remembers the way the frosting tasted, the way the pink sugar roses dissolved on her tongue.
This memory, and a scant few others like it, is all Sophia has of her mother, so she keeps them close. She keeps them secret, too. Because as paltry as these memories are, she shouldnât have them at all.
The truth is, Sophia Wallaceâs mother died when she was six years old. But that isnât how she remembers it. Not always.
Sophia has never told anyone about her unusual memoriesâsnapshots of a past that never happened. But everything changes when Sophiaâs seventh grade English class gets an assignment to research solar eclipses. She becomes convinced that the upcoming solar eclipse will grant her the opportunity to make her alternate life come true, to enter a world where her mother never died.
With the help of two misfit boys, she must figure out a way to bring her mother back to herâbefore the opportunity is lost forever.