The Peach Thief

Starred review from November 1, 2024
Grades 5-8 *Starred Review* Through the gates of a British Earl's walled kitchen-garden in 1850, readers encounter 13-year-old Scilla Brown, a former workhouse orphan, as she attempts to steal a peach--and is caught by the formidable head gardener, Mr. Layton. As an act of survival, considering that in mid-nineteenth-century England women were second-class citizens, Scilla doesn't correct Mr. Layton when he presumes she's a boy and gives her the opportunity to work in the garden. Suddenly, Scilla, or Seth as she is now known, must earn her keep by learning how to properly garden in addition to adopting the mannerisms of a boy. These tasks become complicated as Scilla struggles to hide her body's feminine developments alongside a twisting knot of affection for Phin, the charismatic garden boy. Like a peach stone taking root, Scilla develops friendships with other estate staff and gains a fragile confidence with Mr. Layton's South Asian housekeeper, Mrs. Nandi. Shadowed corners around the estate heighten the lingering tension of Scilla's livelihood as Phin's charm starts to crack. Smith's debut novel is an exceptional example in transmuting the dedicated act of gardening to the nurturing of one's soul. This vivid story of struggle and loss spearheaded by hope is appended with an extensive author's note that touches upon aspects of nineteenth-century England, including horticulture, British India, dialect, and more.

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December 2, 2024
Smith’s richly detailed debut, set in 1850s England, centers orphaned preteen Scilla Brown, a workhouse runaway. Drawn by the scent of peaches, Scilla, disguised as a boy, sneaks into the Earl of Havermore’s walled garden, where she is caught and unexpectedly employed as a pot scrubber, a job that provides her with decent food and a soft bed for the first time in her life. Fueled by a growing fascination with gardening, Scilla—now going by Seth—begins to dream of becoming a permanent employee and, eventually, a gardener. Scilla’s secret—jeopardized by her growing breasts, the onset of her menstrual cycle, and her unfamiliar feelings for gardener-in-training Phineas Blake, who takes her under his wing—keeps the tension and drama steady throughout. Scilla’s personal integrity, often hard-won, makes her a sympathetic protagonist, but occasional flashbacks and passing references slowly, yet never fully, reveal aspects of her traumatic past, resulting in gaps that may muddle readers’ understanding of her entire story. An author’s note adds helpful context about English workhouses of the period and includes extensive historical grounding for Smith’s immersive depiction of life in a mid-19th-century English estate and its gardens. All characters read as white except for an India-born adult. Ages 8–12.

Starred review from January 1, 2025
Scilla, destitute and starving, scales the walls of a grand estate's kitchen garden, with far-reaching consequences. On a rainy night in Lancashire, England, in 1850, 13-year-old Scilla, formerly a resident of the Ormskirk Workhouse and now alone after the death of her companion, Dora, climbs into the Earl of Havermore's vast kitchen garden. Food is what she's after, and what she craves most of all is a peach, a fruit she's tasted once before and has since dreamed of. She's caught--and because she looks like a boy in her rough trousers and cap, stern head gardener Mr. Layton agrees to her offer to scrub plant pots to make up for the damage she caused to the earl's cherry tree. Smith's writing evokes the verdant atmosphere of a large 19th-century walled garden, from the ingenuity of "glass-houses" for cultivating pineapples and strawberries to the espaliered fruit trees trained to grow against the high brick walls. Supported by this rich atmospheric setting, Scilla's journey of anxiety over her deception and her crush on a garden boy, whose rule-breaking challenges her moral compass, is made more acute by her love of learning how to garden and the novel sense of finally belonging somewhere. Scilla, who presents white, finds a caring motherly figure in housekeeper Mrs. Nandi, who's Bengali and from Calcutta. Tantalizing details from Mrs. Nandi's backstory, along with other storylines, enrich this deeply layered novel. Nuanced, richly atmospheric, and exquisitely written. (map, author's note)(Historical fiction. 9-13)

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