6 May 2021 SUNSHINE by Marion Dane Bauer, Candlewick, May 2021, 208p., ISBN: 978-1-5362-1411-6

“I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell

I know, right now you can’t tell

But stay awhile and maybe then you’ll see

A different side of me”

-- Matchbox Twenty (2002)

“He props on one elbow to check for Sunshine. It’s the first thing he does every morning, look to see where she is. He knows she’s not real. Of course. She just lives in his mind. But still, when he looks he can always find her.

And there she is. Curled on a corner of the sleeping bag below his feet.

Ben pats the floor to call her closer. She opens one eye, considers his invitation, then lets her eye drift closed again.

Ben flops back down, astonished. His dog never disobeys him. Never!

But then, as if to let him know she was only teasing, Sunshine rises, pads toward him, and lies down again with a small grunt, half on, half off his pillow. She gives his ear a good-morning lick.

He sighs and turns toward her until her reddish-gold fur fills his whole vision. There’s never been a moment when he couldn’t count on her.”

Ever since he was three, and his mother left him and his father, Ben has counted on his imaginary dog, Sunshine. His father was happy to play along back then. But now Dad thinks Ben should have since outgrown the invisible dog routine.

SUNSHINE begins with Ben preparing to go stay with his mother for the first time since she left. She lives on her family’s ancestral island, on a lake in the middle of the northern Minnesota wilderness. No electricity. No wifi. An outhouse and an outside water hand pump. Mom arrives in a canoe to collect him for their week together.

“He closes his hand around a floppy ear. He can’t count the number of times he’s held an ear, warm and furry in his hand. When he was little, he used to hold it all night long while he slept.

It’s what drives his dad crazy, the way he ‘touches’ Sunshine. He says it’s taking imaginings too far.”

It turns out that Ben’s mother sees Sunshine positively, telling Ben that Sunshine is a guardian spirit, a companion, a daemon. So begins the event-filled week of mutual discovery shared by a boy and his long-lost mother. The mother to whom, Ben hopes, he can sufficiently endear himself so she will magically come back home to live with him and Dad.

SUNSHINE is intense and thrilling. I’ll keep it short, so as not to give away too much. Why Ben’s mother left her husband and small child to go live alone on the island is a mystery to be resolved. I sat and read through to the last page, eager to find out how mother and child will react to each other, and wanting to understand what happened that tore the family apart. 

The psychological aspects of the story make this a better fit for upper elementary than for younger readers but this is one captivating read and a possible springboard for important discussions.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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