Bonnie Griesemer’s tale of a thoughtful raccoon and a young girl struggling to make sense of loss has a quiet, spare sweetness, made even more delicate by the unusual spacing of the words and phrases. SADIE AND CHARLEY FIND THEIR WAY is not exactly a novel in verse–the prose itself is fairly straightforward–but the stanzaic page arrangements deliver a certain musicality found in poetry. The effect is perhaps best summed up by Griesemer herself in the Acknowledgments section at the end of the book where she thanks her editor for creating the “magical flow” of her words; an otherworldly story made even more fantastical by its odd phrasing.

Although Charley is the protagonist of the narrative, readers meet Sadie first when invited inside her mind as she struggles to figure out her place in the world. Sadie knows that she’s meant to do more than frolic in the forest, but unsure as to what other options are open to a raccoon. Fate lends a hand when she is injured by horses and rescued by Charley, who just can’t bear another death in her young life. At first, it feels like a little bit of a literary cheat that Sadie can speak out loud as readers had become accustomed to understanding the character through her thoughts and musings, but that passes quickly when we hear what she has to say: “Simply because you have been told things are a certain way does not mean they are. One’s experience of life does not preclude the possibility that there are an infinite number of ways in which it could be realized differently.” Sadie is a sage; she really does have the best and wisest lines in the book and we come to appreciate them as much as Charley does.

After a moving scene near the end, the narrative stops rather abruptly; it almost feels like Griesemer ran out of steam—or story. Although one might prefer a more drawn-out and poetic close, however, perhaps it does justice to the quirkiness of this little book; life doesn’t proceed in steady, measurable steps and sometimes things end before we’re ready. Sounds like something Sadie herself would say.

In SADIE AND CHARLEY FINDING THEIR WAY, author Bonnie Griesemer offers a gentle and brief story of an unlikely friendship between human and animal, poetically mapping out the surprise of truthful communication and the healing balm of communal grief.

~Shari Simpson for IndieReader