‘Tis the season of odd little children’s books–or else my brain is responding to everything I read lately with the one word assessment, “Odd.”

Take, for instance, The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech, in which a mute boy shows up one day asleep on the front porch of a childless couple named John and Mary, and then the boy just as mysteriously disappears a few months later, after having opened the couple’s home and hearts to needy children. He also paints on the side of the barn and rides a cow.

Or there’s the odd INSPY nominee, Doon by Carey Corp and Laurie Langdon, a young adult novel that tries to be “Christian” or “spiritual” and feminist and hip and happily-ever-after fairy tale all at the same time–in Brigadoon, Scotland. The combination was disjointed and not entirely successful.

Then, there’s Lemony Snicket’s latest series, All the Wrong Questions. But Mr Snicket’s weirdness is not really a recent phenomenon, and it’s kind of fun to get lost in for a season.

Anyway, Nikki Loftin’s new children’s novel, Nightingale’s Nest, is odd, or at least it felt odd to me. It’s sort of magical realism, I guess. Inspired by a Hans Christian Andersen story (according to the blurb)? Well, Mr. Andersen certainly had his moments of eccentricity.

Twelve year old “Little John” Fischer, Jr. has a lot of problems. His little sister died when she fell from a tree, so now Little John hates trees, all trees. Little John’s dad is working for the meanest, richest man in town, Mr. King, and Little John is his assistant. Their is cutting down and trimming pecan trees. And Little John’s mom is only sane on her good days; on her bad days she talks as if Raelynn, the little sister, is still alive. The family is out of money, and when Little John’s dad gets paid, he spends most of his pay of booze.

But if Little John’s problems are huge, they pale in comparison to the issues that Gayle (short for nightingale), the bird girl with the beautiful voice, is facing. Her parents are dead or missing. She’s stuck in an abusive foster home. She believes she can heal people with her songs. And Mr. King wants to take her voice away from her. When Little John and Gayle become friends and when Little John makes promises to protect and support her, promises he knows he can’t keep, the stage is set for disaster and tragedy.

I don’t know what else to say about this one, except that it is really odd, maybe even intriguing. There’s a situation in the book that is analogous to secret sexual abuse, but it’s not that–at least I don’t think it is. It’s never really spelled out, and it was uncomfortable. I was never quite sure whether Mr. King was a sexual predator, or just a maniacal opera fan. At any rate the ambiguity allows the reader to read into the story what he wills, and I’m not sure what kids will read into it–or not. Nor do I know whether that’s good or not, but it is definitely . . . odd.

QOTD: What is the oddest, most ambiguous and peculiar, story or novel you’ve ever read? Think Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, the afore-mentioned Lemony Snicket.