It’s not every day that a typewriter is the hero of a novel. But for a writer with a good imagination, anything is possible. Author Allie Millington puts hers to work with great skill in Olivetti.

The typewriter belongs to Beatrice Brindle, who has used it to record her feelings after a bout with cancer. But her husband Felix and their four children retain scars from the trauma. One of the boys, Ernest, has withdrawn into himself to the point that he rarely speaks. Felix hides in his career while the other kids battle amongst themselves, as kids are prone to do.

We learn all this from Olivetti, which knows everything that happens in the family, and from Ernest, whose only passion is the Oxford English Dictionary. The family’s troubles multiply when Beatrice sells Olivetti to a pawn shop and disappears. Blaming himself, Ernest embarks on a search for his mother after learning that Olivetti can converse with him through its keyboard.

Millington cleverly balances the somber emotions against Olivetti’s amusing personality. Even typewriters have feelings, as we learn in conversations between Olivetti and another typewriter whose worn components cause it to commit spelling errors.

This is a good novel for middle schoolers as well as families in general. It’s a reminder that we should never take the people in our lives for granted. My only disappointment is a scattering of scatological references that discerning readers should find unpleasant. Otherwise I give Olivetti a solid four-star rating.