The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

Reviewed by Lori

The Accident Season

Title: The Accident Season

Author: Moira Fowley-Doyle

Perma-Bound Catalogue#: 128557

Description:  Every October Cara and her family become mysteriously and dangerously accident-prone, but this year, the year Cara, her ex-stepbrother, and her best friend are 17, is when Cara will begin to unravel the accident season's dark origins.

Rubric Rating: Level 3 - Laud It

Why I Read It: Great Title and Tag Line

Notes:  It is October.  It is the accident season.  Every October Alice, Cara, and their ex-stepbrother, Sam, batten down the hatches and prepare for the accident season.  Sometimes it’s not bad, just a few cuts and bruises, but sometimes it’s horrible, with broken bones or worse. Cara’s friend Bea predicts a bad one, but not just a bad one, one of the worst.  While Cara struggles to find understanding about the accident season, is it supernatural or fate, or just made up, she decides that in order to find out for sure, she needs to find a missing classmate – Elsie – that none of the teachers seems to remember.  Elsie runs the Secrets booth. People can type up a secret and put it in the box and at the end of the year, the anonymous secrets are put on display. But Cara is afraid she has no secrets, or she’s too afraid to acknowledge them. The accident season is certainly striking them all with force, Cara falls from a bridge, Alice is hit by a car, and her mother breaks an arm.  But soon they’ll find out more this accident season than ever before, and discover more monsters than they had imagined. I enjoyed this book and it wasn’t the type of supernatural read that I had expected. Whether you believe in the accident season or think it’s just coincidence is up to the reader to decide. The secret box and the revelation of family secrets was a great integration for me.  How we choose to acknowledge or deny our secrets and how that hurts or heals us. A very good read.

Recommended Readers: Grade 9 and Up

Themes: Accidents, Secrets, History, Family, Taboo, Relationships, Protection

Cross-Genre Links: 
Music:  October by Evanescence
Web Link: Post Secret

Inquiries and Activities: 

  • Who believes in the accident season and who doesn’t and why?  
  • Some events are accidents and some are not? How does calling something an accident change it’s meaning?  
  • What happened to Cara and Alice’s uncle Seth?
  • What relationships in the novel are taboo?
  • Do you have a secret?  Would you share your secret like they do in the novel? If so why or why not?
  • Create a secret project like in the book.  
  • Create a chart of secrets for the characters in the book – don’t forget Bea and Cara’s mother.
  • Who do you think Elsie is?


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