Through alternating narrator Katie and Law, Sarah Smith presents the mystery of the Perkins Bequest. Katie has spent the last year dealing with the sudden death of her mother. To deal with her grief, she is having imagined conversations with her father, who passed away before she was born. At least, she thinks the conversations are in her imagination. Katie is also an artist, and her drawings have taken a clear turn for the morbid. When Katie begins seeing and talking to George at the park, she first believes he is a living, breathing boy, but very soon she realizes he isn't. Katie has to come to terms with the fact that drawing isn't her only talent: she can also see ghosts. George explains to Katie that he lives in Pinebank, the mansion built by George's wealthy grandfather, Thomas Perkins, a famous Boston benefactor, which is now in ruins. George died when Pinebank caught on fire, and he ran back in the burning house to save a secret treasure hid grandfather asked him to protect.
Law is the privileged son of a black father who speaks for reparations to be paid to African Americans for slavery and white mother who is a landscape architect. Law has inherited his father's love of history and his mother' appreciation of architecture. As a result, he has a strong fondness for Pinebank and it's position in the landscape of the park, a landscape designed by his mother's hero and his namesake, Frederick Law Olmstead. Law and his mother are also involved with the Friends of Pinebank, a group working to stop the mayor of Boston from demolishing Pinebank and working to raise money to have it restored. Law's father, however, is completely against the restoration of Pinebank and would love to see it destoyed due to Thomas Perkins's past as a slave owner and trader.
When Law sees Katie drawing Pinebank as it looked when George was alive, he approaches her about using her drawings to help save the house. Katie confides in Law about George and the treasure he died trying to protect. Law knows right away that this treasure must be the mysterious Perkins Bequest. Hoping the Bequest will be able to save Pinebank, Law and Katie vow to find the treasure, which George says is hidden in a secret place in the basement. There's just one problem: the ruined mansion is a death trap and there's no way Law and Katie can safely reach the basement.
So, what is the Perkins Bequest and can Law and Katie find it without getting themselves killed or will Pinebank claim another life? Who was Thomas Perkins: an evil slaver or a generous philanthropist? Will Pinebank be saved or demolished? To find out, read The Other Side of Dark by Sarah Smith.
Review
Once I started reading The Other Side of Dark, I couldn't put it down. I stayed up half the night to finish it and find out the truth about Thomas Perkins and the Perkins Bequest. The end of the novel, when the mystery is revealed and Katie finds George and releases the Others is very powerful and moving. Once Law's father told him the "truth" about Perkins, I began to suspect there was more to his story and when Katie found George's "secret place," I put it together immediately. Still, I couldn't wait to read the last chapters to find out how it all played out, whether Katie was saved, who won the Walker Prize, and whether Pinebank would be rebuilt. I think this is a statement to Smith's skill in creating characters and drawing you into their stories so deeply that you still want to keep reading after the big reveal. I did not know the story of the Katey or have any idea that the Perkins family, Pinebank, and the Friends of Pinebank were all real, but finding this out just makes the story even stronger. I think the aspect of historical fiction in the novel, with the information about slavery and the Underground Railroad, as well as the topics of racism and reparations, make this young adult novel a great choice for school libraries and a selection US History teachers should consider using as a supplemental reading. I can just imagine the great discussions the book would inspire!
References
Smith, S. (2010). The other side of dark. New York: Atheneum Books for
Young Readers.
[Cover of The other side of dark]. (2010). Retrieved on September 20, 2011,
from: http://www.sarahsmith.com/index.php?option=com_content&view
=article&id=15&Itemid=69
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