Layoverland

Gr 7-10–Bea is ugly crying about ruining her sister’s life when a huge SUV crosses into her lane. She makes eye contact with the other driver and realizes she knows him from school, then wakes up on a plane with that boy and a variety of other passengers. No one seems to know where the plane is headed, but it soon arrives in an airport where someone is holding a sign with Bea’s name on it like they were expecting her. She comes to find out that moment in the car was her last second of life before both drivers died in a head-on collision. They have landed in an in-between place where people are sent to redeem themselves and earn their place in Heaven. Bea hasn’t ever given much thought to what happens when you die; now, she is stuck in this airport until she can resolve her issues. With the help of Sadie, her sign-holding friend, Bea learns that she has been assigned to help 5,000 souls discover the one memory that is keeping them from Heaven, then she can join them. All of the people in the airport are given a passport and a lottery number to determine when they get their opportunity to move up. The boy from the crash has no idea that he is responsible for Bea being here, but she is going to make him earn each and every second in Layoverland because she wasn’t ready to die. This is a cute read about one conception of the afterlife that is resonant of Gabrielle Zevin’s Elsewhere and Wendy Mass’s Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall. Do the actions in our daily life and the way we treat others affect our place in the next?