Overview

For eleven-year-old Tash, Cap'n Jackie isn't just the elderly next-door neighbor - she's family. When she disappears, only Tash holds the key that might bring her back. Tash didn't want to go to camp, didn't want to spend the summer with a bunch of strangers, didn't want to be separated from the only two people she has ever been able to count on: her uncle Kevin, who saved her from foster care, and Cap'n Jackie, who lives next door. Camp turns out to be pretty fun, actually, but when Tash returns home, Cap'n Jackie is gone. And Tash needs her - the made-up stories of dolphin-dragons, the warm cookies that made everything all right after a fight, the key Cap'n Jackie always insisted had magic in it. The Captain always said all Tash had to do was hold it tight and the magic would come. Was it true? Could the key bring Cap'n Jackie back? In a heartfelt and stunningly written story, Pat Schmatz introduces readers to a tenacious, fiercely loyal girl struggling to let go of the fantasies and fears of her childhood . . . and say yes to everything that lies ahead.

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9781543687941

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Pat Schmatz is the author of Lizard Radio, which, in a starred review, School Library Journal called an entertaining and thought-provoking read, and Bluefish, which the Horn Book described as unique and original, believable and poignant . . . with a power of its own in a starred review. About The Key to Every Thing, the author says, A few years ago, my friend Nora gave me an old, bent skeleton key for my birthday. She said, 'I think this key has a story.' I carried it in my pocket for months. One sunny morning on a long walk, the key told me its story. I did my best to put it down in words. Pat Schmatz lives in Minneapolis.

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