Common Sense Media Review
By Mary Eisenhart
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Imaginative fantasy deals with grief, memory, conformity.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 9+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
What's the Story?
Something bad happened to 11-year-old Elodee's family a while back, and her parents have decided to move them all to EVENTOWN to make a fresh start. They've been there before, and it was perfect. When Elodee, twin sister Naomi, and her parents start settling in, they find lots to love in the pretty town with cute, identical houses, great ice cream, amazing weather ... And after her parents and Naomi have had a number of their memories removed at the Welcoming Center, they're fitting in just fine. Elodee's forgetting quite a lot of her previous life already, but she's not sure she wants to give up some of what she can recall, even if she's not sure why it matters.
Is It Any Good?
Corey Ann Haydu spins an intriguing, imaginative, heartfelt, and creepy tale of a family that seeks refuge and a new beginning in a town where everything's perfect. When that perfection seems to involve losing more and more of what she loves, 11-year-old Elodee isn't so sure about Eventown, but also wonders if she's the problem, as the rest of her family seem perfectly happy with it all. Young readers of Eventown will appreciate Elodee's spirit, her ability to cut through falseness and pretense, and her struggles with fitting in (and whether she even wants to).
"What they don't know is it's Jenny who is being awful by not stopping her question asking when I obviously don't want to answer. I am angry at all of them with their tiny, almost-invisible dismissals and the not-so-tiny ways they tell us that they want everything to go back to the way it was before, not because they want us to be less sad, but because they want their own lives to be easier."
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about going along with other people's idea of perfection, and what happens when you do. How does Eventown compare with other stories you know that deal with this theme?
Do you like to cook? Do you prefer to follow a recipe, or make things up as you go along?
Do you think it's important to remember things, even when they're sad? Or are you better off forgetting?
Book Details
- Author :
- Genre : Fantasy
- Topics : Family Stories ( Siblings ) , Friendship , School ( Middle School )
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Katherine Tegen Books
- Publication date : February 12, 2019
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 8 - 12
- Number of pages : 336
- Available on : Nook, Hardback, Apple Books, Kindle
- Last updated : September 30, 2025
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