Ever since 16-year-old Evan Griffin's mother left when he was three, it's been just him and his dad at their Canadian home, whose address they jokingly call "123 Any Place." Evan and his father are very close, so when Evan's father suddenly dies of heart failure, there's "a whole lot of Never to get used to."
As if his grief weren't overwhelming enough, Evan finds himself with a mystery on his hands. Evan's father died just after reading a hand-bound manuscript called Kokoro-Jima, the Heart-Shaped Island, and there's a man who keeps calling Evan about it. A letter tucked inside Kokoro-Jima indicates that Evan's 90-year-old grandfather, Clifford E. Griffin II, is blocking its publication, and it's just making the man look guilty, possibly of murdering one of the book's authors, Isamu Ōshiro. Still, Evan is on his own now, and the only person he can think of to call for help is the steely, possibly murderous sergeant major his ex-hippie, draft-dodging father despised. As Evan starts to read Kokoro-Jima, he, along with readers, immerses himself in the fantastical story, narrated by two World War II soldiers--one Japanese, one American--who are stranded on a tropical Pacific Island inhabited only by child ghosts, zombies and a beaked monster. This impossible tale bleeds into Evan's life, as he and his grandfather become the marooned, warring soldiers who struggle toward mutual understanding.
English-Canadian author Tim Wynne-Jones (The Uninvited, Blink & Caution) crafts a truly spellbinding novel in which the mystical, desert-island, wartime chronicle is as riveting as the modern-day story... and the ways they begin to fuse together are breathtaking. --Karin Snelson, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness