"Living in Lily, Arkansas, is sometimes like living in the land that time forgot, " says 17 year old Cullen Witter. The summer before his senior year of high school, his entire world is shaken. His cousin dies of an overdose and his younger brother goes missing. In WHERE THINGS COME BACK, by John Corey Whaley, two tales are tightly woven into a page turning thriller. Cullen's pain in searching for his brother and his grief in watching his parents and aunt struggle through loss is so poignantly written. I found myself connecting to every aspect of his small town life, and I realized that even big things can happen in small places. Woven into the story is the subplot of the Lazarus woodpecker, thought to be extinct, that allegedly reappears in Lily and begs the question "Do things ever come back?". This beautifully written story is the 2012 winner of the William C. Morris Award for a debut book written for teens as well as a Printz Award winner for excellence in YA literature.( Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2011)
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