Sara Nickerson

Most stories start at the beginning, but I really can’t say I know where that is. Is it a falling-down mansion on a small island in the Pacific Northwest, or in the navy blue pickup truck making its way to that mansion? Does it start on a sunny day this year, or on a sunny day twenty years before? Is it with me, or with a young boy who, a long, long time ago, believed he was turning into a rat? I guess the only thing I really do know is where it started for me – in that navy blue pickup heading toward a place I didn’t even know existed. A place that had already changed my life.

Bedfordshire Children's Book of the Year Award Nominee
Texas Lone Star Reading List
Rhode Island Children’s Book Award Masterlist
Colorado’s Blue Spruce Book Award Masterlist
Golden Sower Award (Nebraska) Masterlist
Oklahoma’s Sequoyah Book Award Masterlist
Book Sense 76 Pick
ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults
Winner of the Tatoulu Literary Prize in France
Scholastic Book Club Selection

"Nickerson’s writing style bursts with energy and humor. Readers will laugh and cry with Margaret, shivering alongside her during moments of heart-stopping suspense."

"Readers will easily suspend disbelief as they sink into the Twilight Zone-like plot, and Comport’s comic–book artwork not only extends the plot of the novel but also stands on its own as fully realized ministories."

"The story’s graphic-novel sensibility…will intrigue fans of that genre, and readers…will relish this compelling and offbeat adventure."


"This first novel is an intriguing mystery that ultimately affirms the idea that no man is an island."