WHERE THE LOCKWOOD GROWS

A company-town dystopia laced with a climate change message.

Set in an unspecified future time, this novel follows 12-year-old Erie, who was named after one of the two Great Lakes that hasn’t dried up yet; her 16-year-old sister, Hurona, was named after the other. Erie works in the branches of the lockwood trees that surround her town of Prine. The fireproof, human-invented lockwood, planted after the devastating Arborklept fire, grows so quickly that each morning, Prine’s younger kids cut away top branches to let the sun in and harvest the pods the tree produces. Each week, FOLROY company trucks from the wealthy city of Petrichor pick up the pods and pulp, paying the townspeople a pittance. The grim lives of Prine’s residents are well described, but readers will wonder why Erie dreads growing too big to work in the tree; it’s not explained why that’s preferable to being safer on the ground, where Hurona works. After Hurona and Erie discover something sinister about the lockwood, they smuggle themselves to Petrichor to find the scientist who developed it. At least that’s Erie’s intent; the one surprising plot twist is what Hurona’s actual mission is. Erie’s thoughts often interrupt the narrative flow with strained metaphoric connections and ultimately come across as telling readers rather than letting them figure things out for themselves. Erie and Hurona are White, and Hurona is queer; the supporting cast is diverse in race and sexuality.

Earnest but heavy-handed.