Description
Ester Star is a germophobe and hypochondriac and she's convinced she's going to die. To prepare for her imminent and inevitable demise, Ester keeps a list of all the questions she hopes to have answered in the afterlife - things she knows she'll never have the answers to during her lifetime. What really happened to the dinosaurs? Just how big is the universe? Are ghosts real? She's up to eighty-nine questions and counting.
When Ester's usual after-school sitters announce they are moving away, her mum comes up with an alternative arrangement that turns her world upside down. Every day after school, Ester is to spend her afternoons with Mum at work. At a hospice. Terrified of all the things she might catch at a hospice, Ester is anxious every second she's there.
But soon she meets Joan, an elderly lady who used to be in the circus. Joan tells Ester she doesn't believe in the afterlife, but she does have one question she'll regret never having answered while she's alive. Why did her sister disappear all those years ago, after they had been so close growing up in the circus together?
With the help of Peter, another kid who spends his afternoons at the hospice, and her new next-door neighbour, a tech whizz named Mackenzie, Ester sets out to have Joan's question answered.
Will Ester realise there's more to life than worrying about dying?
Review
Ester lives with her Mum, who is a nurse at a hospice. With her usual after school care no longer an option, Ester’s Mum has arranged for Ester to come to work with her for the afternoons, and get her homework done.
But this is Ester’s worst nightmare! Ester is a germaphobe, and she is convinced that she is going to die. In preparation for the inevitable, Ester has a list of questions that she hopes will be answered when she gets to the afterlife. She sees everything as a risk, and has a constant supply of sanitiser, face masks, bandaids, painkillers and tissues on hand, just in case! So how is she going to cope in a place full of sick people?
Her first day at the hospice turns out to be not so bad after all. She meets Joan, who is an intriguing old lady who was once in the circus, and a young boy named Peter, who spends his afternoons there too, and with the hospice smelling like the comforting smells of disinfectant and bleach, Ester might just be ok!
When she goes home, Ester meets the new neighbours, including Mack, who is convinced that she will be friends with Ester. But friendship is not a common thing for Ester. Maybe this time it might be different?
Ester is not the only one who has questions about life. Joan has one last thing that she would like an answer to - where is her sister, Winnie, who she hasn’t seen for 62 years?
Can Ester and her confident new friend Mack, who thinks she is a private investigator, along with Peter, piece it all together and help Joan fulfill her last wish?
This is a beautiful, thought-provoking, and at times very emotional story, and it deals with very sensitive issues of life, death and worry in a moving and touching way. It is also a story of friendship and acceptance. Could the people Ester meets at the hospice be the ones who can finally show her that there is a lot to live for? And that sometimes you might have to take a few risks to get the most out of life? This is a wonderful middle grade story, that is suited to those 10+.
Teacher notes prepared by the publisher are available on our website for this title.
