TFK Kid Reporter Milo Bhushan read A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall and interviewed its author, Jasmine Warga. Read Milo’s thoughts below.
Ever since Rami Ahmed started sixth grade, he’s felt invisible. Having no friends to hang out with, Rami spends his afternoons in an art museum. He waits for his mom to finish work there. When a painting disappears, Rami’s mom is a suspect. So is Rami! With the help of a turtle named Agatha, a ghost named Blue, and a classmate named Veda, Rami must race to clear his mom’s name and his own. It turns out that the thief and the motive are not what they seemed.
A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall is the latest book from Jasmine Warga. She’s the author of the Newbery Honor book Other Words for Home. This is her first mystery. When I spoke with Warga, she said she relates to Rami. As a kid, “I really wanted other people to see me,” she says, “but I was scared about being seen in the wrong ways.” Warga wants her readers to know “they deserve to be seen. And sometimes,” she says, “you have to be brave in order to be seen.”
A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall is a captivating novel. The characters have to solve the mystery of a stolen painting. But each of them also solves the personal mystery of how to be seen by others. As Warga puts it, “figuring out who you are and where you belong in the world is also a mystery.” Now if only we all had a wise and observant turtle named Agatha to help us figure it out!
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