Rain has a way of making things easier to find that have long remained buried, and when Esme stumbles over a dinosaur bone emerging from the mud on Solace Hill, life becomes even more complicated, mysterious, and magical. Paps’s rusting tractor marks the spot on Solace Hill where he breathed his last, and Esme finds her own solace lying under the tractor, accompanied by a horned toad she calls Bump. Some things are never meant to be discovered, and their finding often has dire consequences, but some found things create a ripple effect of goodness, reward, and healing. For both, finding things is a blessing and a curse, and refusing to answer the call of this talent is not an option for either of them. While Esme is naturally the protagonist in Finding Esme, her grandmother, Bee, is a strong force in her life and throughout the book, linked to Esme through blood and the gift of finding things.

Esme’s little brother, Bo, is carefree, but there may be more lurking under the surface. Esme’s father, Harlan, has run off again, and her mother, June Rain, is lost in her own world filled with longing and sadness. Esme has recently lost the one person she feels loved her best, her grandfather, Paps. “It’s the art of finding a heartbeat in the darkness a mile away, a dragonfly wing at the bottom of a river.”įinding Esme by Suzanne Crowley is a delightful yet mournful coming-of-age story about a young girl carrying far too much weight on her small shoulders.

The stolen one by suzanne crowley