Olivetti by Allie Millington

 Some of Ernest's early good memories involve playing with his mother's old electric typewriter.  He and his brother and sister used to make a game of making up stories and having their mother type them out. Then they all went through a terribly hard time and because of the trauma have drifted apart.  Ernest has stopped talking to his family very often, and struggles at school.  The typewriter, named Olivetti, is sad that no one types on him any more, but still watches over the family silently hoping that time will heal them and they will start using him again.  Then one day Ernest's mother takes Olivetti to a pawn shop and sells him for $126 dollars. How could this happen to him and who will look after the family?  Olivetti feels sure that if the family could read what their mother has typed with the typewriter over the years, it might help reunite the family, so he decides to break the cardinal rule of typewriters.  He decides to communicate with Ernest. 

I don't remember why I put this one on hold.  Maybe I was just intrigued by its cover.  It is an interesting book and the premise of making a typewriter a POV character is clever and original.  The writing in the book is good and all the characters are fully drawn and sympathetic.  It is, I think, an realistic portrayal of how hard it is for a whole family to overcome a shared trauma. That being said, it is a very heart wrenching book, and it was a little hard to read. (spoiler alert.) We find out later in the book that the mother has gone through cancer treatments that were hard on both her and the family. They think she is healed, but then two years later she finds out the cancer has returned.  There is a scene in the book when a bad guy has the typewriter and starts to take it apart. In the book the typewriter is a sentient being and the description of the man taking the typewriter apart feels really brutal. As I was reading it I thought, oh, the writer is using this scene to show how brutal cancer surgery and treatment are.  It was all really well done but really heavy. I could see a situation where this book could be helpful for a child trying to process their own or a loved one's trauma, but I think a parent should read through the book first before giving it to a sensitive child. (2024, 256p.)

PS. I will be surprised if this doesn't end up on a lot of "Potential Newbery" lists this year.