Epiphany
Epiphany is the town in which our main characters all live—and it's the town where a lot of peripheral characters, like Noah's grandparents and Margaret Draper, used to live. It's also the name o...
Eggs
Humpty Dumpty. Turtle eggs. Chicken-or-the-egg. You practically need a damp rag to wipe up the egg that's all over this book. The kids themselves are all little eggs, just like Ethan imagines parts...
Turtles
Here's a symbol that comes at you like an anvil (see "Symbols: The Puzzle" for another): baby turtles. Let's let Nadia explain it:When baby turtles come out of their shells, which are round—about...
The Puzzle
The puzzle that Ethan buys for Julian is all wrong—"not half wrong; it was all wrong" ("Ethan".118)—until it's not: ""Before Julian opened up my gift, I knew that it was going to be just right"...
The Monkey
Julian's magician-mentor Gopal gives him a little monkey figurine along with a little moral lesson:'Gopal gave me this little sculpture. It can do tricks.' Julian then stood the little figure first...
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
Both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are books about weird, magical journeys when things that seem mundane—playing cards, rabbits—turn out to be extraordinar...