Palace Beautiful

April 12, 2010
Soon after 13-year-old Sadie arrives with her family at their new home in 1985 Salt Lake City, she meets a ghost-obsessed girl who calls herself Bella, and discovers an attic nook named Palace Beautiful. Sadie loves painting and colors—especially naming them (chapters are titled “cave-dwelling white” and “spontaneous-combustion scarlet”). Sadie’s mother died giving birth to her younger sister, Zuzu, and Sadie harbors anger about that, as well as fear that her pregnant stepmother, Sherrie, may suffer a similar fate. Sadie, Bella, and Zuzu find a journal in Palace Beautiful written by Helen, a girl their age whose family was stricken with influenza in 1918, and whose fears parallel Sadie’s. Debut author Williams’s vivid prose brings both Sadie and Helen’s worlds to life, and narrator Sadie is a particularly—perhaps overly—precocious observer (“Dad found Sherrie a year and a half ago. She came from Neiman Marcus in Dallas. Dad saw her working at the makeup counter and they fell in love”). Through moments of heartache and joy, Sadie’s strong, contemplative spirit shines through, as does the thrill of discovering a secret place of one’s one. Ages 10–up.

Starred review from March 1, 2010
Gr 6-9-In the mid-1980s, 13-year-old Sadie Brooks and her younger, tantrum-prone sister, Zuzu, arrive at their new house in Salt Lake City with their father and pregnant stepmother. Kristin (aka Belladonna Desolation, or Bella) lives with her demanding mother and feels like an "extra"a child her mother didn't want. She and Sadie become close while investigating the possibilities of ghosts in the nearby graveyard. When the girls find a crawl space in Sadie's attic, they are amazed to also discover a doorway with the words "Palace Beautiful" painted over it. Inside the small space is a journal, and when Zuzu bursts in at the same moment they find it, the team of two becomes a gang of three. They take turns reading the diary, which dates from 1918 and was written by a girl named Helen White. She describes the very room in which the three girls are sitting; her family, including a baby brother who is not expected to survive; and the town's battle with deadly influenza. The children decide to try to track Helen down, and their heartfelt quest results in an unforgettably sweet conclusion. Williams does a super job with the characters in this beautifully written book, and it is satisfying to see how they develop."Alison Donnelly, Collinsville Memorial Public Library, IL"

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2010
The attic where sisters Sadie and Zuzu and their new friend Bella find a journal from 1918 becomes their beloved "Palace Beautiful." Sadie, who remembers her mother's death at Zuzu's birth, sees her fears for her pregnant stepmother's health echoed in young Helen's diary entries about the influenza epidemic. Set in 1985, this novel hearkens back to the quiet, family-focused novels of that era.

(Copyright 2010 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)