What is one to do when you feel weighed down and oppressed by grief and despair, but really your drawn to the clouds and rooftops as your heart longs to fly? That is just what Livy is drawn to figure out in The White Tower by Cathryn Constable, a beautifully written mystical and mysterious novel about overcoming grief and finding out who we are meant to be. As Livy starts at a new school, while dealing with the death of her best friend, she realizes all is not as it seems to be at Temple College. She also has this irresistible urge to join the Sentinels that stand as guardians on the rooftops of her school. Livy just has to make sense of it all as well as making sense of the grief that is weighing her down.

As the plot gets more mysterious in The White Tower, Livy finds herself spending more time on the rooftops, befriending a boy that seems to spend time up there as well, but also making friends in her new school. This all helps the grip that grief has on her heart loosen a little. And then just when the reader thinks they have the mystery figured out, there is an interesting twist at the end!

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Scholastic

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  None

Violence/Gore:  Man pushes off the roof; man jumps off a roof and hits the ground below. 

Sex/Nudity:  None

Mature Subject Matter:

Death.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

None