This sensitively wrought novel contains enough unique personalities and interesting twists to keep the audience absorbed. She makes friends with two classmates, one the leader of the popular clique and the other a misfit, and the borrowed house begins to feel like a home. Gradually, however, her surroundings begin seeming more solid than illusory. When Hillary's ''gypsy'' parents, who make their living selling handmade ''gizmos'' at street fairs and bazaars all over the country, accept a house-sitting job in Ashland, Calif., Hillary assumes it is another of the Watchers' experiments.

Koss (The Trouble with Zinny Weston) portrays Hillary with such sympathy and wit that readers understand her Watchers game as a comic expression of the loneliness Hillary cannot express. She wonders if buildings, towns and even people really exist or are merely images planted in her imagination by invisible ''Watchers,'' who wait to see how she will react to new settings and situations. Their campaign is a study in inter-generational grassroots activism - yet Chol Soo’s heartbreaking story is no fairy tale.Seventh-grader Hillary has moved around so much that nothing in her environment seems to have a past or a future. The 90-minute documentary features a diverse group of Asian Americans who campaigned to free Chol Soo, including the crusading Korean American investigative journalist KW Lee, activist students who went on to become public defenders, lawmakers and attorneys, as well as older, more conservative immigrants. To rectify that, first-time directors Julie Ha and Eugene Yi made the 2022 documentary “ Free Chol Soo Lee.” The film is now streaming on PBS’ website until May 23, during Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and from the PBS app until July 22. The story of this immigrant from South Korea sparked an Asian American social movement that fought to save his life, yet the momentous case was largely forgotten over the years. In 1974, 21-year-old Chol Soo Lee was wrongfully convicted for a gang murder in San Francisco’s Chinatown. While in prison serving a life term, he killed an Aryan Brotherhood member in self defense and was sentenced to death.

Kailey by Amy Goldman Koss