WE OWN THE SKY

It’s the summer of 1924 when Davy and Jo Michaud take off into a life that dreams—and nightmares—are made of.  

Newly orphaned and long impoverished, narrator Davy, 12, and Jo, 17, are uncertain about what lies ahead. Their fortunes take a turn for the fantastical, however, when their mother’s estranged cousin, hotshot aviatrix Ruthie Reynard, swoops in to take the siblings under her proverbial—and literal—wing. Thrills abound as the children find a new family amid the daredevils and stalwarts of Ruthie’s circus. But behind the ever present danger of stunting lies a far more sinister threat, one from which the siblings and those they love might not escape. Set in Maine against the backdrop of the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the Northeast, this vivid picture of senseless violence will hit home for today’s readers. As invectives fuel anti-immigrant sentiment, Davy realizes that he and his sister, whose father was an immigrant from Quebec, are the “foreign invaders” the Klan hates. The circus plot thread, full of heart and warmth, clashes with these themes in a way that keeps readers firmly invested in the fates of tenderly crafted characters they will grow to love. The first-person narration reads somewhat awkwardly, though it’s befitting of a young not-quite-man still growing into himself and his place in the world. Characters default to White.

A timeless, timely, and poignant tale of derring-do.