Anne Spollen Libri

"Spollen interweaves elemental, evocative images of what is formless and boundless-water, air, grief, death-with what is solid and limited-earth, objects, human love and forgiveness. This enchanting novel starts quietly, draws the reader in and weaves a seductive spell that holds until the last page." --Kirkus(starred review) "I had come to know silence well during those months after my mother died. When you sit in silence long enough, you learn that silence has a motion. It glides over you without shape or form, but with weight, exactly like water." Magda's mother always said the world was full of strange and beautiful secrets only the two of them could see. But now she's gone and Magda's world is flooded with anxiety and loneliness-and maybe, madness. As an imaginary family of bickering fish begins to torment her, Magda's only outlet is starting beautiful but destructive fires in the marshes near her house. The Shape of Wateris a darkly lyrical and surprising tapestry of the mundane and the surreal, in which Magda begins to untangle her family's secrets and search for a stable place in the world.

Upon moving to her mother's upstate New York home after her gambler father leaves, ninth-grader Elizah just wants to be left alone until she meets Nathaniel in the cemetery where her mother is caretaker, and feels instantly drawn to him.