This was a lovely book about found family, community, and finding solace in nature. Lauren Wolk is a beautiful writer and the way she conveys various art forms, such as music, poetry, and painting, along with the feelings that they conjure are so vivid. This book will be a hit with middle grade readers, and I highly recommend it for schools and libraries.

Unfortunately, this book ended up being a DNF for me.

I started this book back in March but got really bogged down in it, set it down, and have had no desire to return to it. Even though I read over 75%, I am not motivated to pick it back up. My biggest issue was that our main character felt too grown up and her mother felt more like the child than the adult in their relationship. I just didn’t find it believable and the bullying also got to be too much for me.

In Candle Island by Lauren Wolk Lucretia Sanderson and her mother move to Candle Island after her father dies in a car accident. Lucretia begins to make new friends on the island while caring for an abandoned osprey chick and painting.
The beginning of the book felt slow with lots of characters being introduced. Once the plot began to move forward it was hard to put down. This was a beautiful story of grief and friendship. Lauren Wolk’s writing does not disappoint.
This would be a great addition to a library servicing upper elementary or middle school students. I would recommend this to 4th grade & up.
Thank you to Dutton Books and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Lauren Wolk books have a theme. When tragedy strikes, beauty, lessons and hope can still be found. Candle Island continues this theme. The imagery is so beautiful and poetic. I wanted to highlight so many lines. You can see and feel what the main character sees and feels. That is a powerful gift for an author to have. I have all of Lauren Wolk’s books and always recommend them to kids, and adults too! This book would make an excellent graphic novel because there are so many beautiful images I would love to see illustrated.

This slow-moving, beautifully written, thoughtful book has a touch of mystery which I figured out fairly quickly. However, the joy in the book came from watching Lucretia get to know her new home, make new friends, and learn to share parts of herself that she has kept hidden. Recommended for thoughtful, artistic kids.

A tiny self-sufficient island is always a good draw for me, a place I'd love to live but for the massive inconvenience. It allows authors to create all kinds of oddball characters. Candle Island isn't stuffed quite as full of quirky folks as some others, but the talents and backstories of the main characters are fairly random. The community is prickly about outsiders, but willing to accept those who put in effort, and the rude visitors are an excellent and ongoing source of conflict. With a small cast of animal companions, there was every ingredient to make a cozy and fun reading experience. The book was well written and plotted, and I was drawn in, but I failed to connect well with any of the characters.

seemed interesting at first, but the main character was difficult to connect with, and as the story progressed, i didn't feel like there was a conflict strong enough to hold my attention.

I have had to sit on this review for a while because I absolutely adore Lauren Wolk. Wolf Hollow is one of my favorite middle grade books, in large because it was her debut and I was so impressed by the story which was crafted. I have read every other book she has written with great abandon and have loved them all for different reasons.

Candle Island read very differently to me when I began. And to be honest, it felt slow. I felt confused as this was not what I expected the story to be like. But then I gave the narrative time to unfold and what occurred was a story of art and beauty but of being afraid to let it show. It was a story of new beginnings, new relationships. It was a story of nurturing the environment and standing up for those who don't have a voice.....or those who have lost theirs. It is a story about coming into one's own with confidence, being willing to mold and change as needed.

The things I love best about Lauren's stories, and why I think so many have been under Newbery consideration, is that delineation of setting. The New England, in this case, Maine, landscape that she creates is one of stark beauty and yet violent.....protective.....It is clear that the author knows where she wants to set her books and as a result, the reader is sucked IN. I wanted to visit Candle Island, to protect the ospreys and learn how to bronze a bell. To be inspired by what I saw around me and express it--whether in art, baking, song.

Highly recommend this book with the encouragement to not give up on the read. You will be left pondering and you will be left inspired.

Lucretia and her mom move to Candle Island bearing secrets. They hope to start over in a place where they don't see memories of her dad everywhere, and hopefully have space to heal. However, they enter into a world of mysteries, secrets, and discord between the summer folks and islanders.

Lucretia is named after Lucretia Mott, and she strives to live up to her namesake while making friends. However, that is one of many challenges she faces on the island, including being expected to know things no one has told her.

This beautifully written book gently explores grief, home, friends, and family, and ways that appearances can be deceiving. Not everything people think or believe about someone else is true, and assumptions can be wildly inaccurate.

It's one I will re-read and use as a mentor text.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

Another beautiful book from one of my favorite authors! Her prose is stunning and her descriptions gorgeous. This book did feel a little more adult in theme and tone than her others. I still enjoyed it and looked forward to reading every time I picked it up.

Absolutely beautiful. A hopeful, heart-squeezer of a story with great characters - and a baby osprey! Loved it.

There is something very timeless about Candle Island and the beautifully moving story that Lauren Wolk weaved so seamlessly. If this does not win a Newbery, I will lose hope in all that is good and right in the world.

Wolk pulls you right into the world of Lucretia, a girl who is wise beyond her years, and is starting a new life with her mother on Candle Island.

Lucretia is learning how to deal with grief from losing her father, while also embracing happiness and the many nuances of life. The Islanders are not easy to please or impress, but she is able to find friendship with a boy named Bastian, and purpose, as she saves a young osprey and takes care of her sweet horse named Mahogany (Hog). Most of all, Lucretia and her mother hold tight a secret that, if discovered, could completely shatter their already fragile life.

There are so many important quotes and themes in this story (fighting for what's right, friendship, grief, the loss of a parent, being true to oneself, the importance of community), but this one quote stood out amongst the rest:

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."

This book is like a warm hug. A reminder that we can choose how we fight for what's right, and that people can always find connection - they just have to be willing to look for it.

Thank you, Lauren Wolk, for writing this.

Lucretia Sanderson and her mother, Eliza, a famous painter, have just moved to Candle Island from Vermont. They are still grieving the loss of Lucretia’s beloved father, who died in a car accident some time earlier. All they want is to be left alone, but as soon as they arrive, they’re caught up in the tension between the locals and the troublemaking summer kids. Add an injured osprey chick and a nosy art critic, and privacy seems impossible to come by.

But there are compensations. Lucretia is taken with the beauty of Candle Island and the peace it brings. She quickly befriends a boy called Bastian, though his cousin Murdock seems to resent her presence. When Lucretia learns the reason why, she begins to have more compassion for Murdock and her situation. In time, Murdock warms up to Lucretia and the girls realize they have more in common than they thought.

Lucretia, Murdock, and Bastian reminded me a lot of the children in one of my favorite books, Emily of New Moon. Lucretia's circumstances are closest to Emily's, but she's an artist like Teddy. Murdock writes poetry like Emily but personality-wise she's more like Ilse. Bastian has elements of both Teddy and Perry. There are also a lot of overlapping themes like grief, friendship, and creativity, and a similar island setting.

I don’t want to reveal too much about the story, but Candle Island is truly beautiful. The prose is vivid, the characters well-rounded and likable. As the summer progresses, secrets are unearthed, and characters move towards healing.

My only complaints are that, for one, Lucretia comes off much, much older than twelve. If she were just a little older, say fourteen or fifteen, I could maybe suspend my disbelief far enough for this to not be an issue. But she has the emotional maturity and reasoning skills of a grown adult, and I just couldn't buy it.

The second issue I had is with the time period this book is supposed to be in. I think we're in the late sixties, maybe early seventies, but for some reason I started it thinking it was set in the forties. The dialogue is dated in a way that doesn't really suggest any particular era, especially not the 1960s. Other readers may not be bothered by this, though.

Regardless, Candle Island is very much my type of book, and if that meant overlooking a few details, then so be it.

Lucretia and her mom are moving to Candle Island, a small island off the coast of Maine, for a fresh start after the death of her father. They are also seeking anonymity, for reasons which unfold during the course of the story. The island is sharply divided into people who live there year round and people who come for the summer and the confrontations between the two are escalating. There are also story lines about finding your passion and pursuing it, being kind, protecting the ones we love, and knowing when to let go. The book is a mystery and has multiple mystery lines that weave together in the most amazing ways. The writing is stellar and I enjoyed it SO much.

I found Candle Island totally engrossing. When I read middle grade books, I try to imagine the reading experience from the perspective of a modern kid--that is the point after all. But, reading Candle Island, I found myself swept up in a personal reading journey. The free range childhood of the 80s and 90s, the lack of tether to technology, the freedom of a childhood in which exploration and nature are vital components. I'm not entirely sure what era this book took place in, but I found myself imprinting the era of my own childhood on the setting.

This book was slow in terms of plot, but completely affecting in terms of the emotional journey of the characters.

Lucy and her mom have just moved to Candle Island, a small community in Maine where the population more than doubles in the summer. They have moved to be more anonymous, running from an accident that took her father and other secrets they would rather keep safe. There is a pretty sharp divide between the islanders and the summer people, and Lucy has to figure out how to navigate the dynamic. When she makes friends with Bastian, she finds a kindred spirit, but his cousin Murdock is a tougher sell. As Bastian and Lucy get to know each other, their secrets threaten their friendship, and Lucy has to decide if she is truely ready to move on.
Another beautiful historical fiction novel from Lauren Wolk.

Lauren Wolk brings so much intelligence and affection into her novels. Don't be fooled by the title, this is not a light summer beachy read: it's filled with grief and sadness. While the character development is well done, the overall dark theme felt a bit too much to make it an enjoyable read. It's a high quality work of literature, but I'd still be cautious to set proper expectations before handing it to a child.

Twelve-year-old Lucretia and her artist mother are looking for a fresh start. Candle Island, Maine is far enough from their Vermont home to escape the constant reminders of the father and husband they have lost, and it is big enough to offer the privacy their painting requires. But before the pair have driven off the ferry, they are drawn into an escalating conflict between wealthy summer kids and working class islanders. Wolk draws an evocative portrait of both an island and a creative child. At the center of the many dramatic events is the tension between Lucretia’s desire to avoid harm, and her need to connect. When do you stand up to a bully, when do you reach out to someone you wish were a friend? What if you make it worse? Readers can lose themselves in specifics of art making, secret keeping, animal rescue, serious bullying and friend seeking. Some characters, and events, seem too bad, or too good, to be true. Readers seeking a lively summer read, and a thoughtful life primer, will be more than satisfied. Lucretia and most islanders read as white. Thanks to Dutton and NetGalley for an Advance Readers Copy in return for an unbiased review.

Thank you to Penguin Young Readers Group and NetGalley for the eARC!

Filled to the brim with little mysteries, this is a charming and poignant novel about identity, secrets, grief, and change. I absolutely devoured this. I found myself completely immersed in Lauren Wolk's writing and felt like I was right there on Candle Island with Lucretia, Murdock, and Bastion. This books is so alive, so vivid and lush. This is a perfect example of a book recommendation I would give to people who don't read children's/middle grade books because they are "for kids." Atmospheric and beautiful, this book positively shines, and I can't wait to read Lauren Wolk's backlog now.

The things Lauren Wolk says about change, kindness, and friendships really resonated me. I really hope everyone gives this book a chance!

When her father dies, 12-year-old Lucretia and her mother decide they need a fresh start. To rebuild their lives, they move to a tiny island called Candle Island. Life on the island turns out to be different than Lucretia expected. She ends up having to confront young sociopaths, hostilities towards seasonal vacationers, and a nosy art critic. As she finds her foothold as an islander, she makes friends with prickly Murdock and Batian, who have their own secrets. Amidst the feud, Lucretia struggles to discover her self-identity and purpose. Will Lucretia and her mom find the new life they are seeking? Will Lucretia figure out a way to fit in? What is the secret they are keeping?

The plot is immersive, engaging, and well written. The characters are realistic, relatable, and memorable. The vivid descriptions used to describe what Lucretia sees with her synesthesia are masterfully done and draw the reader into the story. People interested in realistic fiction, island life, and dealing with bullies will want to pick this one up. Recommended for most library collections. 4 stars, Gr 4 to 8.