THE BOOK OF ONE HUNDRED TRUTHS
by Julie Schumacher
Yearling/Random House
Hardcover: 0385732902
Paperback: 9780440420859
Ages 9-12
192 pages

Twelve-year-old Thea thinks she has everything she needs for her annual summer visit to her grandparents' house by the ocean. She's made this trip since she was six, so she knows what to expect. However, just before she boards the plane, her mother hands her one more thing: a blue notebook. Mom challenges Thea to write down one hundred truths over the next three weeks. This may not sound too difficult for most, but for Thea it'll be a struggle. About six months earlier, Thea started lying.

The first lie almost made Thea sick, but it quickly got easier. She lies about anything and everything, to anybody. Her parents worry she's going through a phase, but Thea shrugs them off. Then her teacher suggests seeing a counselor at the school. But he doesn't seem to help.

Thea's vacation starts out like the previous ones, and she listens to her two aunts argue all the way home from the airport. But she quickly learns that this summer will be different. First, she won't be staying in the back bedroom, which is her favorite; her two older cousins have already claimed it for the summer. She won't be staying in the middle bedroom either, as her four-year-old cousin has settled in there. In fact, Thea would be sleeping in the attic, which is bad enough as it isn't so much a bedroom as it is a storage space. To make it worse, she'd be sharing it with her seven-year-old cousin, Jocelyn. Almost immediately, Jocelyn becomes Thea's shadow, following her around and asking lots of questions, especially about her blue notebook.

But Thea doesn't want to share what's in the notebook. At first, she struggles to find truths to write down. She notes how her relatives are strange but loveable, how she doesn't like sharing a bedroom, and how she probably wouldn't have wanted to visit the beach house if she'd known it would be so filled with people. But as the days go by, Thea uncovers more and more truths that she's been hiding beneath the lies, like her frequent nightmares, how much she misses her friend Gwen, and how she'll never visit Three Mile Creek ever again. Will Thea's book of truths be able to heal her hurting heart?

THE BOOK OF ONE HUNDRED TRUTHS is an incredible journey into a girl's haunted past. Julie Schumacher has cleverly written a page-turner of a story filled with vividly real characters and a profound, multi-layered plot spiced up with a bit of mystery, suspense and humor. Highly recommended.

    --- Reviewed by Chris Shanley-Dillman, author of FINDING MY LIGHT and THE BLACK POND

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