After his father's stroke, Ephraim and his family move to the Water Castle, the Appledore family's ancestral home, which his mother has inherited. As he and his siblings explore the strange mansion and learn about its history as a source of curative water, he begins to hope that its past holds secrets that may heal his father. Meanwhile, Ephraim gradually befriends classmates Mallory, whose family has worked at the Water Castle for generations, and Will, whose father carries on their family's age-old grudge against the Appledores. Interspersed with the present-day story are flashbacks to events taking place in the same location in 1908 and 1909, when Dr. Appledore bottled his famous Fountain of Youth Crystal Water. Although the historical-narrative background has its own strengths and its own uses, it interrupts a more believable, involving present-day story. With their individual points of view, different family problems, and often prickly personalities, Ephraim, Mallory, and Will are at the heart of this somewhat convoluted but ultimately rewarding novel.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2010 Booklist

Blakemore (Secrets of Truth and Beauty) skillfully explores the intersection of science and magic in this multifaceted story. When 11-year-old Ephraim Appledore-Smith's father suffers a stroke, the family leaves Cambridge, Mass., for his mother's ancestral home in Crystal Springs, Maine. Known as the Water Castle, it's where her family bottled water, long disappeared, that was believed to have healing powers-some claimed it came from a Fountain of Youth. Interspersed with chapters taking place in the Water Castle in 1908, the plot grows increasingly sophisticated as Ephraim becomes obsessed with finding the water he believes will cure his father. He and two classmates whose families have been linked to his for generations-not always positively-come together on a research project about explorer Robert Peary, but are soon, along with Ephraim's siblings, discovering secret rooms and staircases in the intricately built house, in search of the water. While strongly suggesting that the water has magical, scientifically based powers, Blakemore refuses to provide a neat explanatory ending (which may frustrate some readers); instead, a sense of skeptical wonder pervades the book and lingers. Ages 10-14. Agent: Sara Crowe, Harvey Klinger. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

WHEN my oldest son was 3 and something didn't go quite the way he had envisioned, he would lament: "I want to go back! I want to go back!" Surely, one of the hardest jobs of childhood is accepting that life moves forward and when something terrible happens, it cannot be undone with either words or wishes. Two new middle-grade fantasy novels feature children on the verge of adolescence who want very much to change the course of life events, and who learn it's never as simple as it may seem. "The Water Castle," by the Maine author and librarian Megan Frazer Blakemore, is set in a Maine hamlet where, just as in Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, all the children are decidedly above average. They're smarter, faster and stronger. Healthier, too. To what do the inhabitants of Crystal Springs owe their longevity? There just may be a real Fountain of Youth in their town. Ephraim Appledore-Smith is thrust into the strangeness of Crystal Springs - which isn't even on any maps - when his father suffers a devastating stroke. Ephraim's mother, a doctor, takes him, along with his brother and sister, to live in the ancestral family home so their father can receive treatment from one of her medical school mentors. Soon after they arrive, Ephraim gets the feeling there's something odd about his new house, once a resort and health spa that boasted of healing waters and is known locally as the Water Castle. For one thing, the labyrinthine house hums, and flashes of blue light that appear inside don't have an obvious cause. Things get even stranger when Ephraim starts sixth grade at the local middle school. There he meets Mallory Green, a classmate and a descendant of the African-American family that long served the Appledores, and Will Wylie, a descendant of the scientifically minded family that has feuded with the Appledores for a century. Together, the three embark on a quest to explore the tunnels under the Water Castle and discover whether Ephraim's family really did find the Fountain of Youth, or whether they were just hopeful hucksters. Of course, Ephraim is driven by more than just curiosity. If he can find the Fountain of Youth, he can reverse his father's stroke. Would a Fountain of Youth be a blessing or a curse? This question occupies the parallel 1908 story of Ephraim's and Mallory's ancestors, obsessed with expeditions to the North Pole. The central narrative involving Ephraim and his friends ultimately shies away from the darker side of immortality, with an ending that at once feels a bit too neat and leaves questions hanging. What shines through, however, is Blakemore's tender understanding of how these children - and all children - feel about their lives and the adults who control them. Just as Ephraim wishes the Fountain of Youth would turn back time and heal his father, Mallory wishes she could return to a time before her family fractured, and Will, most heartbreakingly of all, wishes his father could be . . . someone else: "He'd been wishing his whole life for the same thing, he realized, for his dad to be someone he was not. In that moment he realized that wish was never going to come true, no matter how many times he made it." The irrevocability of death also concerns the young girl of Charles de Lint's thoroughly delightful fantasy novel "The Cats of Tanglewood Forest," an expansion of a 2003 picture book with Charles Vess, "A Circle of Cats." The orphan Lillian Kindred is a first-rate heroine, brave and bright and kind, and her absinthe-green dress and fire-red hair are powerful visual touchstones in the gorgeous illustrations, which appear generously throughout the beautifully designed book. Bitten by a venomous snake while napping one day, Lillian is changed into a kitten by magical cats - "Black cats and calicos, white cats and marmalade ones, too" - inhabiting the wood. They've returned her own kindnesses by saving her life, but she doesn't want to be a kitten, and she journeys to see Old Mother Possum, a possum witch who, with a snap of her fingers, returns Lillian to her human form, granting her wish that "none of this had ever happened." But monkeying with time and fate has consequences, as Lillian learns when she returns home to discover the snake has claimed another victim, someone very close to her. She must set out on a mission to reverse this turn of events, shadowed by a fox named T. H. Reynolds (The T is for truthful, the H for handsome - or so he says), one of the most charming literary characters I've run into in quite some time. De Lint's world is both familiar and fantastic. Magic lurks at the edges but only occasionally draws in the humans who live there. This story is rich with allusions to Native American folklore and reminds us, across its bewitching and wonderful pages, that humans young and old have always wished to turn back the clock. Lillian, with the help of the possum witch's magic, restores some of the balance lost through her tinkering. But the lovely final illustration, of her elderly and beloved aunt, emphasizes that even where there's wizardry, time marches on, and no one lives forever. S.S. Taylor's novel for middle-grade readers is "The Expeditioners and the Treasure of Drowned Man's Canyon."

Weaving legacy and myth into science and magic, old into new and enemies into friends, Blakemore creates an exquisite mystery. Crystal Springs, Maine, "isn't on the map," but it's still where Price, Ephraim and Brynn's mother brings their family when their father has a stroke. The "looming stone house" with hidden floors and impossible rooms, owned by their family (the Appledores) for over a century, was once a resort that claimed its spring water had healing properties--possibly a fountain of youth. Ephraim struggles to fit in at Crystal Springs' peculiarly overachieving school; his classmate Mallory steels herself against her mother's recent departure and her teacher's assignment to study Matthew Henson ("He just assumed she would want to do him, because Henson was black too"). While Mallory, Ephraim and another sixth-grader named Will unravel the castle's secrets (each for different reasons, all serious) and confront age-old hostility among their families, a 1908 storyline unfolds: Young Nora Darling (Mallory's relative) assists old Orlando Appledore in feverish scientific research. Peary and Henson's Arctic expedition features in both timelines; science, history and literature references glow; Nikola Tesla visits Nora and Orlando. With keen intelligence and bits of humor, the prose slips calmly between narrative perspectives, trusting readers to pick up a revelation that Ephraim and Mallory don't see--and it's a doozy. This one is special. (Fiction. 10-14)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Gr 4-7- In this novel, three loners become friends while searching for a miracle. After his dad has a stroke, Ephraim Appledore-Smith's physician mom moves the family to the Water Castle, their ancestral home in Crystal Springs, Maine. Ephraim, the prototypical ordinary middle kid, isn't thrilled about the relocation but looks forward to being the Big City fish in a small-town pond. Things don't go as expected, however, and he discovers that Crystal Springs is full of high achievers and deep, dark secrets. He learns about his family's long-running obsession with exploration, science, and finding the Fountain of Youth. Classmates Mallory, descendant of the Darling family, traditional caretakers of the Water Castle, and Will, whose family has been feuding with the Appledores for generations, join with Ephraim to find out the truth about Crystal Springs, and maybe a cure for Ephraim's dad. Part of the story is told through flashback passages from Nora Darling's perspective; she was hired by Orlando Appledore in 1908 to be his assistant, despite the fact that she was young, female, and black. Ephraim is a realistic kid: needy, uncertain, not particularly brave or logical. Mallory, Will, and Nora are also well drawn, as are some of the adult characters, though others are fairly flat. Not all of the mysteries are cleared up, though most can be guessed at, and the story ends on an optimistic note. Comparisons to Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting (Farrar, 1975) are inevitable, and there will be much for readers to discuss. An entertaining and thought-provoking fantasy.-Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Contemporary kids Ephraim, Mallory, and Will reluctantly work together to investigate local Fountain of Youth lore. In 1908, Nora acts as apprentice to an eccentric scientist. Bit by bit, the alternating stories uncover the secret of the Water Castle--and the connections among Ephraim, Mallory, Will, and Nora's families. Blakemore paces her revelations well and raises fascinating questions about the possibilities of science. (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.