Disappear Home

Set in 1970, Hurwitz’s nerve-wracking YA novel opens with a family of three running from Sweet Earth Farm, the commune that has been their home for the past five years. Fourteen-year-old Shoshanna Ebersole, mother Ella, and younger sister Mara steal the commune’s station wagon and flee from Oregon to their former home of San Francisco to escape the girls’ abusive father, Adam, the commune’s founder, whose “philosophy of political anarchy, free love, and rampant drug use” morphed into a violent reality. When they arrive back in the Haight, Judy, an old friend of Ella’s, sets them up with jobs on a farm in nearby Half Moon Bay where Shoshanna and Mara begin to feel a measure of safety and security. Hurwitz (the Adventures of Riley series) establishes a strong sense of tension that never lets up—the question of whether Adam will find the runaways looms over the story. While the ending resolves the girls’ troubles rather neatly, Shoshanna’s resilience is on full display as she tries to keep both her mother and sister safe. Ages 12–up. Agency: International Transactions. (Mar.)