Book Review: The Sky Over Rebecca by Matthew Fox

Publisher’s description

In this breath-taking debut novel, two worlds—and timelines—collide when ten-year-old Kara discovers mysterious footprints in the snow that lead her to another place entirely, perfect for fans of When You Reach Me and Echo. 
 
When mysterious footprints appear in the Stockholm snow, ten-year-old Kara attempts to discover where they’ve come from and who they belong to. They lead Kara to Rebecca, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl, and her younger brother Samuel.  
 
Before long Kara realizes Rebecca and Samuel are refugees from another time—World War II—who are trying to find their way home. Kara discovers that her friends are trapped in a time loop, and they must make it to the British plane that lands near their hideout in order to make it out alive. With unexpected help, Kara travels into the time split to help save her friends.  
 
Matthew Fox’s lyrical prose—both haunting and uplifting—invites readers into an otherworldly setting grounded in history. 

Amanda’s thoughts

Set in Sweden, we meet Kara. She’s lonely, often alone, and maybe depressed. She lives with her mother and spends time with her grandfather. One day, she notices a snow angel that has no tracks leading to it or from it. Like someone just dropped out of the sky, made the angel, and left. A keen user of her telescope, one night she spies a girl out in the woods. She watches her make a snow angel and then shuffle off, in her ill-fitting clothes, onto the frozen lake and to an island Kara never noticed before. This happens on the same day she finds a German coin with a swastika on it in the snow. Upon seeing the girl again, Kara goes out on the ice to meet her, only it appears, at least initially, that the girl, Rebecca, who is Jewish, can only sense her, not see her. Both girls are lonely and need a friend. Somehow, through time and space, the girls are able to reach out to one another. Kara is horrified by Rebecca’s reality of trying to hide with her brother (who is disabled and can’t walk) during WWII.

Meanwhile, Kara is still living her contemporary life while hanging out in the past? in Rebecca’s future? in some weird liminal space? Her mother is generally gone at work or working at home. Her grandfather seems to want to tell her something, maybe about this health, but isn’t. She’s plagued by a bully and his minions. She flickers back and forth between her contemporary life and this weird space with Rebecca and Sam. Rebecca is frantically trying to work out how to save if not both of them, then at least her brother. Kara vows to help however she can, not sure how any of this is working, but knowing she finally has friends and that she’d do anything to help them.

There is something about the narrative voice that grabbed me here right away. It is very much “I did this, I went here, I saw this,” which doesn’t always work for me. But here, it did. Kara is very straightforward about what’s happening. She just accepts this completely strange twist to her life and goes about doing her best to help her friends who are in an impossible situation. This quiet story is full of tension and will keep readers engaged as they watch Kara and Rebecca forge a tight friendship irrespective of time or place. A beautiful story of time travel and compassion.

Review copy courtesy of the publisher

ISBN-13: 9781454951896
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Publication date: 11/14/2023
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years

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