28 November 2024 OLIVETTI by Allie Millington, Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends, March 2024, 256p., ISBN: 978-1-250-32693-5

“Olivetti is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers, calculators, and fax machines. It was founded as a typewriter manufacturer by Camillo Olivetti in 1908 in the Turin commune of Ivrea, Italy.

By 1994, Olivetti stopped production of typewriters, as more and more users were transitioning to personal computers.”

– Wikipedia

“You left your typewriter at my apartment

Straight from the tortured poets department

I think some things I never say

Like, ‘Who uses typewriters anyway?’”

– Taylor Swift (2024)

Are you old enough to have used a typewriter? As a little kid, I sat at my grandfather’s desk, atop a couple of fat telephone books, and pecked at his old, black Underwood (which, if it still exists somewhere, would now be a centenarian). I spent decades with my fingers on the keys of various typewriters, typing school assignments and letters to the editor.

“While we might make it look easy, being a typewriter is no picnic.

Of course, I’ve never actually been on a picnic. No one has ever invited me to one. (This might be because I do not have a mouth, which seems to be a picnic prerequisite,)

Humans type out words on us–stories, love letters, rants about members of their species.

Our silence makes us trustworthy.

So far, I’ve kept my word–which is to say, I’ve kept every word given to me.

Every story I’ve stored.

It’s an important job, being a protector of memories.

Memories are like heartbeats. They keep things alive. They make us who we are.”

Meet Olivetti. He’s a typewriter. He faithfully served Beatrice Brindle and her family for years and years, until Beatrice’s husband Felix bought her a laptop. Shoved aside in favor of the machine with the screen, Olivetti collects dust until the day Beatrice suddenly packs him up, carries him to the Heartland Pawn Shop, and asks for exactly $126. Then she leaves the shop and disappears.

Meet twelve-year-old Ernest Brindle, one of the four Brindle siblings. Ernest is hypersensitive, introverted, social interaction avoidant, and obsessed with his Oxford English Dictionary.

“‘You mean she ran away?’ The words sounded all wrong. 

Pets run away. Kids try to all the time. I would know, I’ve thought about it more than once.

But moms?

Moms don’t run away.

They’re the ones who are supposed to always be there, waiting right where you left them. They’re not supposed to go anywhere.

Dad’s finger tapped the table, typing an anxious invisible email none of us wanted to read. ‘Given the facts, yes, that’s what it seems like.’

‘So we’re going back out to look for her?’ I asked, but it wasn’t really a question.

He took forever to respond. ‘There are a lot of uncertainties. Why she sold the typewriter. Why she needed one hundred and twenty-six dollars. Why she left her phone here, with no way to reach her.’ His voice tightened, like a rubber band about to snap. ‘The police are still searching for any leads. There’s not much else we can do right now, on our side of things.’

It was the worst answer I’d ever heard.

I slid back from my chair, pushing away from Dad and his stupid plan”

OLIVETTI is a first-rate mystery. Why did she leave, and where did she go? 

The tale seriously amps up when desperate Ernest steals Olivetti from the pawn shop, loads a sheet of paper into him, and discovers Olivetti typing on his own, sharing bits of what Beatrice has typed into him over the years.

OLIVETTI alternates between Olivetti’s and Ernest’s points of view, as the seventh grader and the typewriter team up in hopes of finding the missing mom. They are joined in their search by Quinn, the daughter of the pawnbroker, who helps in the search, and helps Ernest escape his shell.

OLIVETTI is an emotional, thrilling, and satisfying read for tweens, featuring moments of memorable levity, and moments of absolute shock, when I alternately gasped, sobbed, or yelled “OH, NO!” aloud.

Richie Partington, MLIS

Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.pbworks.com

https://www.facebook.com/richiespicks/    

richiepartington@gmail.com