IF YOU FIND THIS

Eleven-year-old Nicholas is a math whiz and music prodigy whose brother is a tree. Well, not actually a tree: after Nicholas's mother miscarried a baby boy five years ago, his parents planted a pine tree in their backyard as a memorial. With his violin, Nicholas talks to his brother, and hears his brother talking back to him with music of his own. Right now, Nicholas has a lot to talk to him about: their father lost his job and has moved away to take another; his parents have put their house for sale; and their Grandpa Monte, who was in prison, has shown up in town, looking for lost family heirlooms - heirlooms that might, Nicholas thinks, enable them to keep the house and not move away from his brother.

So Nicholas teams up with two other seventh-grade misfits - Zeke, a notorious thief, and Jordan, the meanest kid in school – to find the lost treasures. Their hunt takes them from the treehouse of a strange fortuneteller, who can summon spirits; to a shipwreck on a remote island, where 18th-century settlers once dueled to their deaths; and to the bootleggers' tunnels under the sand dunes. All the while, time is running out for Nicholas to save the house and his brother.

Set along the shores of Lake Michigan, IF YOU FIND THIS is a story of friendship and a fractured family coming back together: an adventure story like no other.

DIEBE, LueGNER UND HELDEN WIE WIR
Deutsch von Wieland Freund und Andrea Wandel
[HC: Thienemann 07/16; PBSL: Carlsen 05/18]