The Scent Keeper

March 15, 2019
A young girl with a unique talent for identifying scents embarks on a journey of self-discovery when she's ripped from her intensely isolated childhood home.Emmeline has lived with her father on an otherwise uninhabited island in the Pacific Northwest for as long as she can remember. Her father teaches her to read, to forage for food, and to hone her sense of smell. Emmeline doesn't question their isolation, as she's known nothing else. She adores the long days learning from her father, listening to fairy tales, and watching him use his mysterious machine. The machine produces "scent-papers" that her father stashes inside small glass bottles, each paper preserving a one-of-a-kind scent. When tragedy strikes, Emmeline is forced to relocate to the mainland. She is taken in by a kind, childless couple in a seaside village. Similar to a wild animal suddenly brought into captivity, 12-year-old Emmeline struggles to adapt. As she slowly establishes a new life, beginning school and navigating adolescence, questions about her father, her absentee mother, and her own identity continue to grow. The more she learns about her past, the harder it becomes to reconcile her childhood with her future. Told entirely from Emmeline's perspective, the novel contains three distinct sections. The first, where Emmeline is living in the wild, is suffused with wonder and enchantment. The author deftly describes the lush island and the awe of a little girl watching her father fill a cabin with mysterious bottles full of scents and dreams. Once Emmeline moves to the mainland, the patina of her youth wears off, and much of the magic of the story goes with it. Even so, the author's ability to describe scents, the nature in which they evolve, and how deeply they are tied to memory and emotion provides sufficient heft to keep the novel engaging and worthwhile. Told in a lyrical, haunting prose, the story provides fascinating information about the ways in which different fragrances can impact human behavior and the struggles of finding one's own identity.An artfully crafted coming-of-age story that will take the reader on an exquisite olfactory adventure.

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April 15, 2019
In this magical novel, Bauermeister (The School of Essential Ingredients) transports readers to a secluded island in the Pacific Northwest where a girl is raised alone by her father. Emmeline has always lived alone with her scientist father on an island where he collects and studies scents that he preserves in small glass bottles. Emmeline is completely shut off from the modern world and believes mermaids bring them supplies. That fantasy is shattered when Emmeline sees a man named Henry leaving packages on the beach, and, angry about having been lied to, she begins throwing her father’s vials over a bluff. Her father plunges to his death trying to recover one special vial. In the book’s second part, with the help of Henry and his wife, Colette, Emmeline, now a teenager, clumsily navigates her new reality living in a small coastal town outside Vancouver. While Emmeline adjusts to simple things such as using a stove, she helps Henry run his boardinghouse, starts studying with Colette, and yearns for the scents locked in her father’s vials. As she gets older, she slowly begins to uncover the past her father had been desperately been trying to seal away. Blending fantasy with a realist family drama, Bauermeister’s novel will enchant fans of Katherine Paterson.

April 15, 2019
For the longest time, Emmeline knew nothing of the world besides what her father had taught her. On a remote island, only accessible by small boat during the slack tide of a full moon, Emmeline and her father live and learn together: foraging and fishing, drying and curing. Without a formal education but years ahead of her peers in her understanding of the natural world, Emmeline is content with this nontraditional life. When her father's mental health declines and a horrible series of events results in his death, Emmeline has to learn how to function in contemporary society. Her entrance into the mainstream world doesn't come easily, but a hidden talent surprises everyone around her and paves the way for her future success. This coming-of-age story delights the senses, immersing the reader in the sights, sounds, and scents of the wilderness and city life. Fans of Mary Simses and Jennifer Close will fall in love with Bauermeister's plucky heroine, the layers of family secrets, the lush settings, and the painfully tender relationships.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)