Lexa has been frozen since the Spill though fearful, she’s still full of child-eyed innocence. In Spill Zone, Lexa represents the beginning of that process, and her doll Vespertine the end. Half of his job is helping the parents through this transition. His sixth graders (mostly) love rainbows and unicorns, while his eighth graders (often) are cynical and swear like truck drivers. And, of course, these somewhat gendered roles can be switched around in myriad ways.īut Addison has two sisters-both Lexa and her doll Vespertine are part of the family now.Ī friend of mine who teaches at a girls’ middle school, grades 6-8, regales me with stories about how transformative that stretch of growing up can be. Brothers can share unbreakable tribal loyalty or have primal Cain-and-Able conflicts. Little sisters can be sweetness and light, pesky and sarcastic, or Bad-Seed-level psychopaths. Sibling relations are a venerable topic of YA. Addison doesn’t hear those conversations, so connecting with her little sister is hard.

(Neither have any of the kids she escaped with, the sole surviving group of the event.) Lexa communicates only in a psychic link she shares with her rag doll, Vespertine, who was changed by the Spill into something more than a doll. The problem that Addison faces in preserving what’s left of her family culture is that her younger sister, Lexa, hasn’t said a word since the night of the Spill. So when a family is shattered, the leftover members are like survivors of Atlantis or Krypton. Only the people inside it really understand the rules and customs. Every family is its own world, after all. The older sister, Addison, is left with the task of raising and providing for Lexa, which is in some ways like trying to keep a culture alive. It’s about two sisters, Addison and Lexa, who’ve lost their parents and hometown in an event called the Spill. Spill Zone is about what we’re left with after our family is destroyed.

Spill zone book