At first, this book, about a family that’s grown bitter and distant and how they begin to reconcile, seemed slow and flat. But things pick up as soon as 13-year-old Ellsworth is back in the town of Smiths Mills, where he and his distant cousin Jess set about hunting for the treasure that gives the book its title. It’s a pleasing and touching story, full of family histories and mysteries and wonder. I especially liked Ellsworth’s great-aunt Elizabeth, a Quaker who has little hand-lettered signs taped around her house, signs with sayings like “WAY WILL OPEN,” which Elizabeth explains to Ellsworth like this:
I always envisioned that as. . . fumbling, in the dark, against a high wall covered with, oh, I don’t know, thorns and prickles and maybe ugly bugs that bite. No way through except, suddenly, because you’ve kept fumbling, kept trusting, your hand touches a knob, and you turn it, and then, well, then, a door opens, doesn’t it? Into light, of course. Light, and lots of other good things, most of which you didn’t expect.
(page 75)
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