Whirligig

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What to expect

New to town, Brent Bishop longs to stroll around school with the popular Brianna on his arm. But when Brianna begs him at a party full of schoolmates to stop hounding her, Brent’s hopes are shattered. Trying to escape his humiliation, he attempts to destroy himself in a car crash—and ends up killing Lea, an innocent teen unfortunate enough to cross his path. Lea’s mother asks one thing of Brent: that he create four whirligigs from a picture of Lea and set them up at the four corners of the United States. Lea’s mother believes that by spreading the joy that whirligigs gave Lea as a child, Brent will keep Lea’s spirit alive. And so Brent goes off with an unlimited bus ticket and the tools he needs to memorialize Lea. On his journey, he rediscovers his own love of life, and he begins to realize how—like the pieces that form the intricate whirligigs—people come together to affect each other in surprising ways.

Critics Review

  • “Complex and rewarding, this is a stellar addition to a consummate writer’s body of work.”

    Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  • “The story as a whole and the inner sense of self that Brent achieves
    through his experiences are mesmerizing. The language of the whirligig
    stories gleams and soars: a metaphor of movement, dance, laughter, and
    irrepressible life.”

    Booklist

  • “Though Whirligig has linear movement, it impresses readers more
    with its sense of interconnected spiraling…There is enormous
    vitality and hopefulness expressed in this brief masterwork.”

    School Library Journal

  • “This is a cathartic story of redemption. Brent, filled with self-doubt,
    guilt, and a host of worries, is a character today’s adolescents will
    recognize and agonize with. Fleischman’s writing is filled with
    beautiful imagery, no more so than in the twirling arms of his
    whirligigs that remind readers that sustaining the human spirit in an
    imperfect world requires reaching out to others.”

    VOYA

  • “In an intricately structured novel, Fleischman skillfully connects the
    stories of several people to the evolution of his main character…Brent’s journey is an embracing and an edifying one.”

    Horn Book

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