STRAY VOLTAGE

Like the central image of her novel, Doyle's debut is quietly electrifying. An accumulation of telling details and subtle scenes trace the maturation of sixth grader Ian Daley, the second-born son in a family of Vermont dairy farmers, whose mother has recently left them. As Ian tries to make sense of his new life with his gruff, silent father and dismissive brother, Ray, and no mother as buffer between them, he begins to discover his own strengths, especially at school. Ian's teacher asks the class to summarize current events in their own words, and he discovers he "suddenly had things to say and nowhere but school to say them." Doyle's prose gracefully metes out the rhythms of farm life, capturing the silence and the beauty as well as the unrest lurking beneath the surface. For a year, Ian's farm has been blighted by stray voltage, which causes the cows' health to suffer, Ian's family to grow anxious ("Since the start of the stray voltage problem, bad days popped up like beads of sweat, like pimples on Ray's face"), and finally drives Ian's father to a desperate act. Yet Ian finds compassion for the man ("Even when Dad acted like a jerk, Ian was in awe of his [father's] hands and what they could accomplish in a day") and readers may well close this mesmerizing gem of a novel believing, like Ian, that the Vermont landscape itself has the power to heal. Ages 9-14. (Oct.)