The Einsteins of Vista Point

Ben Guterson's The Einsteins of Vista Point is a mystery for 8 year olds about a locked stone tower, a boy who is grieving and a girl who shouldn't be inside it.

What happens

Zack Einstein is eleven. His family have just moved to Vista Point, a scatter of houses on a bluff above a wide river, to turn a fixer-upper into a bed and breakfast. (His dad gave up an architect's job for this. Now he'll be doing other people's scrambled eggs.)

Ten months ago Zack's little sister Susan died. They were sharing candyfloss at the state fair, waiting where their mum had told them to wait, when a kitten darted past and Susan ran after it. Zack has decided it was his fault, and nobody has been able to talk him out of it.

So while his brother and sisters go into town, Zack stays in his room with a book.

Then he looks out of the window and sees a girl with a red ponytail walking towards the Tower. From a distance she looks like Susan.

The Tower is the strange thing on the edge of their land. Nine sided, grey stone, boarded windows, No Trespassing signs, doors nobody has ever tried. Zack tries them. They open.

Inside is nothing like the outside. Pink walls, green and yellow glass, a golden dome, carved faces set in a ring around the rim, and a silver medallion right at the top with writing on it that he can't quite read. And up on the second level, leaning on the railing, is Ann, who is nine and lives on the other side of the woods.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Susan's death is the engine of the whole book, and it's described early, plainly, from inside Zack's memory of the noise and the dark sky. For a child who has lost someone, or who is anxious about losing someone, that will be a lot. It's handled gently rather than luridly, and the grief is the point rather than the shock.

If you've got a reader who's ready for it, it's quiet and beautiful and full of things to work out. This isn't a chase. It's a boy noticing things, and a friendship that arrives like a rescue.

What to read next

If that mixture of puzzle and lonely child is the appeal, Winterhouse is also stocked. Ben Guterson sends another child off alone to an enormous hotel full of secrets, a huge library and a book of puzzles she can't leave alone.