A SECRET SHARED by Patricia MacLachlan
I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and Libro.fm, online retailers that support independent booksellers. If you make a purchase by clicking through the links in this post, I will receive a commission. For more information, see my “About” page.
Nora doesn’t understand why her mom wants a DNA test. Isn’t it enough to know who you are and where you came from? Do you need to know who your ancestors were, too? As Nora expected, her mother’s test results don’t hold any surprises. But Nora finds a huge surprise hidden in the envelope: her little sister, Birdy, snuck a tube of her own spit into the testing envelope and her results don’t match her mom or her dad. Nora doesn’t know why her parents would keep Birdy’s adoption a secret, but as she investigates to learn more about her little sister’s past, Nora’s own secrets begin to pile up. With all of the complicated things she’s thinking and feeling, could there possibly be enough love in her family to hold her together?
This complex story about love and truth is told in MacLachlan’s spare yet meaningful prose. With the current conversation about the trauma of adoption, it might have been nice to see more of Birdy’s perspective and more complex and conflicting emotions from her character upon learning about her first mother. But that isn’t the story MacLachlan is telling here; this is Nora’s story–the older sister, trying to figure out what her family means not only because one of her siblings is adopted but because her loving, trusted parents have lied to her since Birdy’s arrival. I’d recommend this story to elementary-aged readers who enjoy literary fiction.
Susan the Librarian 