The Queen of Ocean Parkway

Tash, Sarvenaz. The Queen of Ocean Parkway
September 3, 2024 by Knopf Books for Young Readers
E ARC provided by Netgalley

Roya lives in a one hundred year old apartment building, where her mother, Aty, is the superintendent, so she knows all of the residents. Since she wants to be an investigative journalist when she grows up, she is working on a podcast about the people who live in the building, and might be listening a little more closely to conversations than she should. Her parents are divorced, and her Baba, a high school science teacher, is undergoing chemotherapy for colon cancer and is very ill. When she meets neighbors Katya and Stephanie in the laundry room, they ask her if she would like to go with them to a new restaurant, Taste of Bangla, that has opened up, but she overhears them arguing as she leaves. Stephanie questions whether Katya will still be there the following week, or will she disappear, like the other women in the Petrov family. When Katya does goes missing and the police are brought in, Roya is worried. She meets Amin, a new neighbor, who parents happen to run Taste of Bangla. He is able to remember everything he hears, so he recounts the conversation with the police for Roya. The two talk to Stephanie and get more information about the supposed Petrov family curse, which has to do with a fortune telling machine, Grandmas (sic) Predictions on Coney Island. Katya has a fortune from the machine that her great-great-grandmother Polina got, that instructs a daughter to be sent every 25 years to get a fortune. Stephanie thinks that is where Katya disappeared, and has something to do with the promise of money. The three also arrange to travel there, and when they do, Amin and Roya manage to travel back to the day when Katya disappeared, and catch a brief glimpse of her. After doing some research at the library, and talking to her Baba about time travel. The three return several times, and finally realize they can only time travel on Mondays, and when they go back the next time, it's 1999. They try to bring Katya back, and can't, and go back to 1974 and are still unsuccessful. After Amin inadvertantly changes the presence by accidentally intercepting a note from his mother to his father, Roya realizes that she might be able to save her father, and finds a graffiti artist to put up some signs. These are misspelled, but lead to her mother, an artist, creating a graphic novel series and becoming a successful author! They figure that what they really need to do is to go back to the first time that time travel occurred, in 1949, and dissuade Polina from ever going in the first place. Will they be able to undo the Petrov curse, and in doing so, change other things in their lives?

Strengths: I love that the author wanted to write a mystery novel that reminded her of Harriet the Spy or The Westing Game, set in her own neighborhood. Roya's family is Iranian, and there are some cultural references, like divining fortunes from Turkish coffee or the Divan of Hafez, as well as descriptions of some of the mother's artwork. The Petrov family history is also interesting, although having that many women go missing would certainly be very traumatic! The time travel is VERY well done, with the Grandmother being mentioned in historical sources as the protector of the Wonder Wheel. This, in turn, is described in scientific terms as a cylinder that might help time travel occur... and that's when I started not understanding the time travel without thinking pretty hard about it, which is an indication that it's done really well! There were other things that I liked, such as Amin's aversion to a lot of foods, for which he was going to food therapy. The only other books I can think of that include that sort of food issues are Gerber's Taking Up Space and Davis' Food Fight. This has very good historic details about the different time periods to which Roya and her companions travel, and I love the description of the noises in the different times, and the observation that without cell phones, people interact completely differently. To add the final bit of spicy brown mustard to this Nathan's Famous Hot Dog of a treat, there are delightful illustrations throughout the book. Definitely purchasing this one, and enjoyed it very much.
Weaknesses: While I liked the idea that there were some things that were immutable and didn't disappear even though they probably should have, it was a little confusing. It was also a little sad that the time travel couldn't have been used to earn a little bit of money, but I guess it was a good message about what is really important in life. Both of these things made the book happier, and I am all for that! 
What I really think: Tash should definitely think about writing more middle grade books. I had forgotten that I'd read her Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love and Three Day Summer, which I enjoyed, but which were definitely written for a Young Adult audience. I would enjoy seeing Roya and Amin again, perhaps engaged in a different supernatural mystery at Coney Island! 

If any device in the world could be used for time travel, it would have been my old phone with the slide out key board. The calendar had a function where you would put in "GO TO" and a date, but you could only go back to January 1, 1980. I even mentioned this to the Verizon salesman, complaining that it wasn't working on my phone, and he replied (very snappily!) "Did you PAY for the unlimited time travel package?" Sadly, I did not, and the phone no longer works, so I will never be able to travel back in time and major in something other than Latin.