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    The Nest
    The Nest
    The Nest
    Ebook151 pages1 hour

    The Nest

    By Kenneth Oppel and Jon Klassen

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    “The Nest leaves a lasting mark on the memory.” —The New York Times Book Review

    Steve just wants to save his baby brother—but what will he lose in the bargain? Kenneth Oppel’s (Silverwing, The Boundless) haunting gothic tale for fans of Coraline, is one of the most acclaimed books of the year, receiving six starred reviews. Illustrations from Caldecott Medalist Jon Klassen.

    For some kids summer is a sun-soaked season of fun. But for Steve, it’s just another season of worries. Worries about his sick newborn baby brother who is fighting to survive, worries about his parents who are struggling to cope, even worries about the wasp’s nest looming ominously from the eaves. So when a mysterious wasp queen invades his dreams, offering to “fix” the baby, Steve thinks his prayers have been answered.

    All he has to do is say “Yes.” But “yes” is a powerful word. It is also a dangerous one. And once it is uttered, can it be taken back?

    Celebrated author Kenneth Oppel creates an eerie masterpiece in this compelling story that explores disability and diversity, fears and dreams, and what ultimately makes a family. Includes illustrations from celebrated artist Jon Klassen.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
    Release dateOct 6, 2015
    ISBN9781481432344
    Author

    Kenneth Oppel

    KENNETH OPPEL is the bestselling author of numerous books for young readers. His award-winning Silverwing trilogy has sold over a million copies worldwide and was adapted into an animated TV series and stage play. Airborn won a Michael L. Printz Honor Book Award and the Governor General’s Literary Award; its sequel, Skybreaker, was a New York Times bestseller and was named Children’s Novel of the Year by the Times (UK). Kenneth Oppel is also the author of Half Brother, This Dark Endeavor, The Boundless, The Nest, Every Hidden Thing, Inkling and the Bloom trilogy. His latest novel is Ghostlight. Ken Oppel lives with his family in Toronto.

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    Reviews for The Nest

    4/5

    10 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I have not read a contemporary book that is more Kafkaesque than this! Strange, fascinating, and just a bit disturbing.
    • 4/5
      Narrated by Gibson Frazier. Frazier packs a powerful performance with this increasingly creepy horror story. An undercurrent of foreboding shadows his soothing voice and even pacing. It's particularly effective when he voices the wasp queen quietly and sweetly persuading Steve to agree to her plan to replace the baby. After hearing the wasp invasion, listeners won't look at wasps in the same way again.
    • 5/5
      This was a really interesting book about a boy who has to contemplate what is "broken" and what is "perfect" when it comes to people he knows and loves. He feels broken, his baby brother is broken, and he has the opportunity to "fix" the baby, but at what cost? The books was thought-provoking, however it also got very intense and likely scary for many when the boy has to defend himself, his baby, and his home against a huge swarm of wasps. I was captivated, scared, and wondering what my students would think about it. I have made a note in my catalog system to alert students to the potential scare factor and make sure they know what they are getting in to before reading it. It would be a great book for discussion topics.
    • 4/5
      Steve has always had vivid dreams and anxiety issues. Now is family is in turmoil following the birth of his baby brother, Theo. Theo has congenital birth defects and his survival is in doubt. In his dreams, a strange wasp tells him that he can help his brother. In real life, these unusual wasps are infesting his home. Unclear where reality ends and dreams begin, Steve knows he must face his fears and help his baby brother.
    • 5/5
      The Good StuffOnce again Oppel excels at writing a story that both children, critics and educators will loveOppel is one of those rare and gifted writers who writes books that don't talk down to children. This my friends is a rarityNot a word wastedHauntingly beautiful and wonderfully creepySimple, yet complex. So many layers and the story will mean so much more as a child ages. This is one to keep and read again as a child grows olderHonest and real (yes in spite of the paranormal aspect)The cover and art work, make this a treasure that you will want to highlightSteve is such a beautifully flawed and lovely little boy that I just want to take in my arms and say, its going to get better. Such a brave and wonderful little boy.Ok, silly I know, but I geek out a little when an author makes a mention of a Canadian city or landmarkThe Not So Good StuffI am already creeped out by wasps dammitFavorite Quotes/Passages" I knew I was broken too. I wasn't like other people. I was scared and weird and anxious and sad lots of the time, and I didn't know why. My parents thought I was abnormal, I was pretty sure. They said I wasn't, but you don't get sent to a therapist if you're normal.""It couldn't, because it was so perfect that it wouldn't even understand what it was like not to be perfect. it could never know weakness or fear."4.25 Dewey'sI received this at the Fall Indigo Insiders Harper Collins Preview and don't have to share my thoughts at all, just like to share awesome reviews
    • 3/5
      "When wasps come to Steve in a dream offering to fix his sick baby brother, he thinks all he has to do is say yes. But yes may not mean what Steve thinks it means"-- Provided by publisher.
    • 5/5
      This book was terrifying... and I loved it! Brilliantly written and illustrated, I have a new pick for students asking for "a scary book".
    • 3/5
      An enigmatic modern fairy tale that blurs the line between what is good, what is evil. I'm still not sure who would be considered the villain in this story, if anyone could actually be viewed a villain.
    • 5/5
      Highly recommend for fans of A Monster Calls. Same eerie, dark feeling flows through this beautifully written book.
    • 4/5
      Read it straight through. Had to. I let it sit for a while but still have questions, and I’m ok with that.
    • 5/5
      A perfect book - start to finish.?
    • 1/5
      This novel is suspense/scary.Steven is afraid of a lot of things. One fear is that he feels that someone stands at the foot of his bed while he sleeps, so he creates a cocoon for himself to feel safe. He also has very vivid dreams; in a new dream, there is a being--a wasp--that talks to him about his new little brother who is ill. She, the wasp, says that her worker wasps are making him a perfect brother and will just switch the baby and the perfect baby. Not understanding everything, Steven agrees to help.There are other strange characters: Mr. Nobody and the knife guy, who seem to be stalking Steven and/or the family. Steven begins to understand that the Queen Wasp is evil. Now, Steven, has to save his brother from the Queen Wasp even though he’s allergic.I absolutely hated this novel, but I don’t like this genre of “weird scary.” You may like such a weird story. I will say the end was thrilling and exciting, so you can skip to the end! Just kidding! The end is pretty hair-raising, so many of you will probably thoroughly enjoy this novel.
    • 3/5
      A young boy who suffers from anxiety attacks and perhaps other unspecified emotional problems becomes overwrought when his newborn baby brother turns out to have significant health problems. He is visited in his dreams by a wasp queen, who promises to "fix" baby Theo. At first Steve is thrilled about this but he soon learns that what the wasps have in mind isn't so nice. I saw a lot of reviews around LT lately praising this book highly as creepy but not scary. I didn't find it to be much of either, even allowing for the fact that it is aimed at a YA audience. None of the human characters had much depth and the story as a whole seemed to be trying too hard to make a point. I was kind of rooting for the wasps, to be honest.

    Book preview

    The Nest - Kenneth Oppel

    THE FIRST TIME I SAW them, I thought they were angels. What else could they be, with their pale gossamer wings and the music that came off them, and the light that haloed them? Right away there was this feeling they’d been watching and waiting, that they knew me. They appeared in my dreams the tenth night after the baby was born.

    Everything was a bit out of focus. I was standing in some kind of beautiful cave, with shimmering walls like white fabric, lit from outside. The angels were all peering down at me, floating in the air. Only one came close, so luminous and white. I don’t know how, but I knew it was a she. Light flowed from her. She was very blurry, not at all human-looking. There were huge dark eyes, and a kind of mane made of light, and when she spoke, I couldn’t see a mouth moving, but I felt her words, like a breeze against my face, and I understood her completely.

    We’ve come because of the baby, she said. We’ve come to help.

    THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG WITH the baby, but no one knew what. Not us, not the doctors. After a week in the hospital, Mom and Dad were allowed to bring the baby home, but almost every day they had to go back for more tests. Whenever Mom and Dad returned, there were new bits of information, new theories.

    It wasn’t like a virus, something the baby would just recover from. It wasn’t that kind of sickness. It might be a kind of sickness that never got better. He might not talk. He might not walk. He might not be able to feed himself. He might not even live.

    When the baby was first born, Dad came home to tell me about his condition. That there was something wrong with his heart and his eyes and his brain and that he’d probably need surgery. There were a lot of things wrong with the baby.

    And there was probably stuff Mom and Dad weren’t telling me—and they definitely weren’t telling Nicole anything at all. She thought the baby was getting all its shots at once and that this was just normal—for a newborn to be visiting the hospital every day and often staying overnight.

    At night I sometimes overheard my parents talking, words and little bits of sentences.

    . . . very rare . . .

    . . . poor prognosis . . . they don’t know . . .

    . . . degenerative?

    . . . no one knows for sure . . .

    . . . congenital . . .

    . . . we were too old, shouldn’t have tried . . .

    . . . nothing to do with that . . .

    . . . the doctor couldn’t say . . .

    . . . certainly won’t develop normally . . .

    . . . doesn’t know . . . no one knows . . .

    During the day Mom and Dad kept looking things up in books and on the computer, reading, reading. Sometimes this seemed to make them happy, other times sadder. I wanted to know what they were reading and learning, but they didn’t talk about it much.

    I had my angel dream in my head, but I kept it to myself. I knew the dream was stupid, but it made me feel better.

    It was a bad summer for wasps. Everyone said so. We usually got them in August, but this year they were early. Dad hadn’t even put up his fake paper nests. Not that they worked that well anyway. One year we’d tried these liquid traps, half-filled with lemonade to lure the wasps inside so they’d get stuck and drown. They’d pile up and up. I hated wasps, but even I didn’t like looking at them in their soggy mass grave, the few survivors clambering over the dead bodies, trying in vain to climb free. It was like a vision of hell from that old painting I’d seen in the art gallery and never forgotten. Anyway, there were plenty of yellow jackets zooming around our table, mostly around the pitcher of iced tea. I kept an eye on them.

    It was Sunday and we were all sitting out on the back deck. Everyone was tired. No one talked much. The baby was having a nap in its room, and the baby monitor was on the table, with the volume turned up so we could hear every breath and snuffle. We drank iced tea, with the umbrella shading us. Nicole was on the lawn, where Mom had spread out a big blanket for her. She was storming a LEGO castle with some action figures. She had her knights and her big box of LEGOs and her toy telephone. She loved that telephone. It was plastic and old-fashioned, and you actually had to dial the numbers with a kind of transparent wheel. It used to be Dad’s when he was little, and it wasn’t busted-­­up or anything. Dad said he’d been very careful with his toys.

    Suddenly Nicole broke off from her attack on the castle and picked up the toy phone as if it had rung. She had a quick conversation, laughed once, then frowned like a doctor getting very serious news. She said Okay and hung up.

    How’s Mr. Nobody? I called out to her.

    Fine, Nicole said.

    Mr. Nobody was a family joke. About a year ago, just before Mom got pregnant, we’d get at least one phone call a day that was just silence. Whenever we answered, there was no one there. Who was it? It was nobody. Dad complained to the phone company, and they said they’d look into it. But it kept happening, so eventually we changed our phone number, and that stopped it for a bit. After a few weeks, though, we started getting the calls again.

    Nicole began calling him Mr. Nobody. Mr. Nobody got his jollies calling us and not saying anything. Mr. Nobody was just lonely. He was a practical joker. He wanted friends. Nicole started including him in her nightly prayers. And bless Mr. Nobody, she’d say.

    Any good jokes today, Nicole? I asked from the deck. Any interesting news?

    Nicole rolled her eyes like I was an idiot.

    Two yellow jackets circled the rim of my glass. I moved it, but they followed; they liked sugary drinks. I’d never even been stung, but wasps terrified me, always had. I knew it was wimpy and irrational, but when they flew near me, my head filled with hot static and I’d lash out with my hands.

    Once, before the baby was born, we’d hiked up Mount Maxwell and were looking at the view, and a wasp came buzzing around my head and wouldn’t go away, and I started running straight for the drop-off. Dad grabbed me and shouted that I could’ve been killed. Get a grip! he shouted. I always remembered those words when I saw a wasp. Get a grip. There were a lot of things I was supposed to get a grip on. I just wasn’t much good at it.

    A third wasp flew in, and this one had different markings. Instead of black and yellow, it was mostly white, with a few silvery gray stripes. It was the same shape as the others, just a little bit bigger. The two yellow jackets took off, and the white-and-silver one settled on the rim of my glass.

    When I tried to shoo it away, it veered toward my face, and I pushed back in my chair so hard, it fell over with a bang.

    Steve, just leave it alone, my father said. If you make a big fuss, they’re more likely to sting you.

    I couldn’t help it. I especially didn’t like it when they flew around my face.

    Where is it! I said.

    It’s gone away, said Mom.

    It hadn’t gone away. I could feel it crawling on my hair.

    With a shout I tried to smack it off, and suddenly I felt a precise searing heat in my palm. I pulled back my hand. In the fleshy part near my thumb was a bright red dot, and already the skin around it was feeling hot.

    Did you get stung? my mother asked.

    I couldn’t answer. I just stared.

    Honestly, grumbled Dad, coming around to look. Come on inside and let’s give it a wash.

    The bottom half of my hand started to feel fat, like it did when you came inside the house after a really cold winter day and started to warm up suddenly.

    It looks a bit swollen, Dad said.

    Numbly I compared both hands. It’s way redder than the other one.

    It’ll be fine.

    I didn’t feel fine. A big wave of heat flushed through me. It started in the center of my back and radiated across to my shoulders, then down my arms. I could feel my heart racing.

    I don’t feel right. I sat down.

    Do you think he’s allergic? I heard my mom say in concern. She pointed. Look.

    I was wearing a T-shirt, and on my upper arm a blotchy rash had appeared.

    Is it itchy? Dad asked.

    I don’t know, I said numbly.

    Does it itch? he asked impatiently.

    Yeah! It’s itchy!

    Mom said, His hand looks pretty swollen. You should take him in.

    You mean the hospital? Just saying the word made me feel like electricity was jolting through me. My heart pumped. I felt hot all over. Am I gonna die?

    Dad sighed. Steve, you are not going to die. You’re panicking, is all. Okay? Deep breath, buddy.

    I was glad Dad didn’t seem too concerned, only weary; if he’d been as

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