Tom Finder [Paperback]

So opens Martine Leavitt's latest novel, Tom Finder, an enchanting departure from her successful fantasies for Young Adults. Tom Finder is a fifteen year-old who finds himself on the cold streets of Calgary. He knows little of his past, other than that it has some tenuous connection to Mozart's The Magic Flute, which is coming to the Calgary Opera House. Tom turns to his notebook and words to try and piece together his identity and the identity of his parents. He becomes convinced that the words and poetry that he writes possess a power to come true. Tom sets out to earn the money required to rent a large billboard in the downtown core of Calgary to advertise his search for his parents.

Sharing the brutal streets of the inner core of Calgary is Samuel Wolflegs. Like Tom, Samuel is searching for family; his son Daniel has left home and he has turned to drugs and crime. His father is convinced that he will soon die, and he is determined to stay on the streets, not eating, until he can reclaim his son. Samuel asks Tom to be a finder-to help him to locate his son. Tom accepts the task. That search provides one of many storylines that keep this novel a compelling read.

While on the streets, Tom makes allies and enemies. He is cheated out of his money, and he sets out to start a business in window washing. Tom evades Train Cops and gang members while continuing his journey of self-discovery.

Tom Finder is magical realism, a compelling mix of the cold realism of homelessness and street kids, and fantasy-seen in the power of Tom's words and the underlying Mozart opera. Leavitt weaves concepts like gravity, visibility and even spelling beautifully in the text. The reader shares with Tom the curiosity of determining the identity of his parents; an identity that Tom renders from the snippets of remembered words and phrases that emerge into his notebook. Tom's poetic notebook becomes the casebook in the mystery of his life. Drugs, crime, prostitution, illness, starvation, darkness and loneliness, while ever present in the novel, hover on the periphery of Tom's search.

Tom Finder will wrap you in its spell and keep you reading. Leavitt's prose is lyrical and thoughtful. Her characters are compelling, even though many are lost and incomplete. The novel comes to a climax as September comes and the production of The Magic Flute arrives at the Opera House. That production awakens in Tom time past. In a surprising ending, we learn Tom's true name, his history, and the beginnings of a future and Tom is faced with the decision as to which identity he will assume in his future.

Tom Finder has garnered many awards and nominations. It won the Mr. Christie Book Award for Young Adult Fiction (Canada) and garnered the Benjamin Franklin Award (USA).

I really liked the book. I think Martine Leavitt's writing reaches high, not content to just tell a simple story of amnesia. She imbues Tom with a wonderfully vibrant intellect; he's a kid whose own inner dialogue keeps him alive. The mysticism that Leavitt adds (in the form of Samuel Wolflegs) gives the novel a nice quality of spirituality. Wolflegs is both ethereal and earthbound, able to speak great words of wisdom, but unable to keep his son away from the evils of drink and drugs.

It's a quest novel, much like "The Lord of the Rings". However, it recognises that the modern knight, who seeks not a ring but himself, will come in a guise that will turn many away. In this case, a homeless street kid who eats garbage and smells like an alley. I loved the Mozart angle in the book as well, giving Tom the aspiration to overcome his "station" in life.

Well worth reading.