Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Hero archetypes
Heroine archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Themes
Synopsis
A READ WITH JENNA TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK “An extraordinary book. It’s a page-turner, full of mystery, but that’s the least of it. The language is dusted with magic. The Children reminded me of Ray Bradbury at his best.” —Stephen King The haunting new novel from New York Times bestselling author Melissa Albert, in which the estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother’s beloved fantasy series, must contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic. Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods. In one, she and her brother, Ennis, live in the wooded shadow of their family's isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of their mother’s world-famous Ninth City books, where their magical adventures have made them household names. In reality, Guinevere's childhood isn't the enchanted idyll her mother’s readers imagine: she and Ennis are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the wild woods they’ve made their playland. As Edith Sharpe’s books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fame—until the night it all goes up in flames, leaving Edith’s series unfinished and her children the sole survivors. Now an adult coasting on her mother's name, Guinevere is mid-promotion for a ghostwritten memoir when her estranged brother, an artist who has until now spurned his family's legacy, announces an upcoming installation titled, simply, Mother . As rumors swirl around a death connected to his last show, unsettling recollections from Guinevere’s childhood begin to surface. Her public facade starts to crack, forcing her to confront the questions she's spent the last twenty years running from: What really happened the night of the fire? And what dark history lies behind their mother’s fantasy world? The Children is wise to the mythic weight childhood memories gather over time, and the way our most beloved stories grow up with us. It's for anyone who's ever revisited an old favorite and found its pages cast in a darker light, the line separating magic from reality blurring as we discover the books that once comforted us carry shadows of their own.
Is The Children: A Read with Jenna Pick appropriate for my child?
Suitable for most readers 16 and up.
This literary fantasy explores childhood trauma, neglect, and a mysterious fire that killed the children's mother. Themes of family dysfunction, dark memories resurfacing, and a possible death connected to the brother's art installation create psychological tension.
What to know going in
This book has moderate violence, no sexual content, and mild language. Content notes include child abuse, child harm, death, death of parent, and grief (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
Teens who loved books within books and dark family mysteries will be drawn to this story about siblings famous from their mother's fantasy series confronting what really happened in their haunted childhood.