By Elana K. Arnold
Clarion Books / HarperCollins, 2026
330 pages
978-0-06-299088-4
Age 14 and older
Following her mom, Gillian’s, death from Covid, an illness for which Gillian staunchly refused vaccination and treatment, Nora (white) travels to France to scatter her mom’s ashes at the site of their favorite painting: Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Disappointed by the park’s appearance, Nora decides to travel instead to Lascaux and goes a bit further than planned: Passing through a holloway in the trees, she finds herself in the year 1946. The shock of her unexpected time travel causes a breakdown that lands Nora in Saint-Alban (a psychiatric hospital that would seem almost unbelievably progressive if not for the fact that it really existed). Nora, who is autistic, finds much-needed respite among the patients at Saint-Alban, including pregnant, Jewish Beryl; Beryl’s girlfriend, Penella, who is Roma; and neurodivergent Auguste, who’s been provided his own art studio. The steady but leisurely pace of the narrative allows ample space for Nora’s reflections on her mother, who had Nora when she was 19 and then abandoned her for four years, leaving Nora to be raised by her grandmother, “Big Nora.” Blaming vaccines for her daughter’s autism, Gillian rejected Big Nora’s acceptance of Nora’s stims and other behaviors and pressured Nora to mask. As Nora unpacks her painful memories, she’s astonished by a young Gillian’s abrupt arrival in Nora’s current timeline. While Gillian doesn’t recognize her daughter, their interactions prove nonetheless enlightening and, ultimately, healing for Nora in this introspective, singular novel. ©2026 Cooperative Children’s Book Center