Nothing Else but Miracles by Kate Albus (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Nothing Else but Miracles by Kate Albus Kara Forde Albus, Kate Nothing Else but Miracles. Ferguson/Holiday House, 2023 [288p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780823451630 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780823456703 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 4-6 Twelve-year-old Dory Byrne regularly gazes at the Statue of Liberty from the southern tip of Manhattan and confides in the statue, whom she calls "Libby," to process her feelings about her father's naval deployment during WWII. Her mother died of tuberculosis years prior, so Dory and her brothers are essentially parentless, with seventeen-year-old Fish overseeing the family and Dory helping to care for their precocious eight-year-old brother, Pike. They've been helped by families and businesses in their Lower East Side area, but when a mean new landlord takes over their building, the Byrnes become nervous that he will report their status as unattended minors to the city. Fortunately, Dory knows about the vacant building stories above a local restaurant, only accessible by a rope pulley-operated elevator, that could be the perfect place for the siblings to hide (and could contain [End Page 88] life-changing treasure). Albus paints a picture of New York City life during the late stages of the WWII with engaging prose and a rich sense of setting, which the dedication indicates was informed by stories from the author's father's childhood. Direct-address parentheticals about a diamond hidden in an abandoned building break the flow of the third-person narrative, but clever Dory and her endearing family are easy to spend time with. Readers will surely become vested in this story of family and community and ache for Pop's safe return from war. An author's note is appended. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois