Elsewhere

Where do you go when you die?

Heaven or
The Undiscovered Country or
The Shadowlands or
The Big Sleep or
The Great Unknown or
The Great Beyond or
Elysian Fields or
Valhalla or
Fortunate Isles or
Isle of the Blessed or
The Kingdom of Joy and Light or
Paradise or
Eden or
The Firmament or
The Sky or
Wherever you are, whatever it's called
(242-243)

Like Owen then says, "Very thorough, but they never write Elsewhere" (243).

Elsewhere is where Lizzie Hall goes after she's hit by a taxi outside the mall shortly before her 16th birthday. In Elsewhere, you grow younger instead of older. You have avocations instead of jobs, because they're supposed to be something you actually want to do. You can get hurt, but you can never die, well, because you're already dead. Lizzie is upset when she finally realizes that she's dead because she thinks she'll never get her drivers' license, she'll never fall in love, and she'll never grow old. Well, she's right on one account, but just because you don't grow old doesn't mean you don't still grow.

While in Elsewhere, Lizzie lives with her grandmother, Betty, who died of breast cancer before Lizzie was born. Now Betty is a 30-something lady with a red convertible and an overflowing flower garden. Lizzie gets an avocation working with dogs and speaking their language, which is something that she's very good at. She also meets her favorite musician, Curtis Jett, who recently died of a drug overdose. She learns three-point turns and how to parallel park from a cute guy named Owen with someone else's name tattooed on his arm.

Ah, Owen... Lizzie soon discovers that she loves Owen, who died in his 30s but is a hunky 17-year-old in Elsewhere by the time Lizzie meets him. But that tattoo... Emily. Emily was Owen's wife back on Earth and he just can't seem to forget her, that is, until she comes to Elsewhere, too. Still in her 30s, Emily doesn't quite love Owen the way she used to, and finally, on the (reverse) day of when Owen got his tattoo on Earth (when he was 16) it disappears, and he realizes that he loves Lizzie now, not Emily.

Lizzie has just given up on Owen, though, right before that tattoo disappears. Since she died young, she can be a Sneaker, someone who died young on Earth and has the chance to go back before they reach babyhood for the second time. She decides she doesn't want to be on Elsewhere anymore, so she goes to the river where babies return to Earth, is wrapped in swaddling clothes as a teenager (awkward) and then she's on her way back to be reborn. Floating down the river of life, Lizzie decides she doesn't want to go back, but she's wrapped so tightly in her mummy swaddling clothes that she can't escape. Meanwhile, Owen realizes he loves her and goes out to rescue her. Now, Lizzie has everything she ever wanted in her life on Earth (minus the high school diploma and college and all that). She's happily in love with a cute guy, she has a job she enjoys, she has friends and loved ones.

Then the time comes, nearly 16 years after she died and went to Elsewhere, Lizzie is a baby again. She's wrapped in swaddling clothes (for the second time, they fit much better now) and is sent down the river to be reborn to a new life and a new family.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2005 (Vol. 73, No. 16)) says of Elsewhere, "Zevin's smooth, omniscient third-person narration and matter-of-fact presentation of her imagined world carries readers along, while her deft, understated character development allows them to get to know her characters slowly and naturally. Hopeful and engaging."

Deborah Stevenson, Associate Editor (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September 2005 (Vol. 59, No. 1)) says, "Creative touches abound in the depiction of the Elsewhere lifestyle and in the human possibilities therein, and readers from a broad range of beliefs will find this a quirky and touching exploration of the Great Beyond."

This would be an excellent book to share with teens if they've recently lost someone they love, but are far enough past the death to have come to terms with it and are able to read something lighthearted.

Zavin, Gabrielle. 2005. Elsewhere. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. ISBN 9780374320911