"Nest" is supposed to be a cozy sort of word, but not in The Nest, a chilling nailbiter from Printz Honor author Kenneth Oppel (Airborn).
Steven is an anxious boy. He worries about everything, most of all his sickly baby brother, Theo, who has a congenital disease no one can quite figure out. At first, Steven thinks he's being visited in his sleep by gossamer-winged angels, haloed by light. But these are no angels. They materialize to Steven as silvery human-sized wasps, announcing that they've decided to replace the sickly Theo with a perfect, healthy baby, and that they need his help. Steven is confused as to what to do, because his family is a wreck, but it doesn't take long for him to realize that perfection isn't real, nor even desirable. Could the wasps "fix" him, too, then? Make him less compulsive and fearful? If they did that, would he still be himself? What would be the cost? The wasps pull Steven into a world that goes even deeper than DNA, burrowing into human existence on a mitochondria-level. But manufacturing "perfection" starts to look sinister indeed, and readers are challenged to examine questions about what "normal" is and, indirectly, the ethics of genetic engineering, all in the guise of a fantastical thriller.
Caldecott artist Jon Klassen's (This Is Not My Hat, Sam & Dave Dig a Hole) moody graphite illustrations help build the sense of horror, and wasps hover over chapter openers in disturbingly larger numbers as Steven's internal struggle escalates to a full-on, real-life battle for survival. --Karin Snelson, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness