(2) YA Seventh grader Reese Buck has never told his best friends, Tony and Ryan, about his father's drug addiction problems; he doesn't want to be ostracized or seen as "that kid everyone felt sorry for." When Reese finds his father unconscious on the bathroom floor after a near-fatal overdose, his mother has finally had enough. She takes Reese to live, reluctantly, in a trailer on the farm of "the church lady," Mrs. Smith, and her grandchildren: thirteen-year-old Meg and fifteen-year-old Charlie, who has Down syndrome. Cochran ably constructs a sensitive portrayal of a self-involved, if well-meaning, adolescent who thinks he knows what's right and his tentative steps toward letting other people in. The healing power of community is at work here, as Meg and Charlie help in their own ways, and Tony and Ryan, absent for much of the story, appear for a grand time in the country, with friends old and new. An extensive author's note details the massive scale of the substance use and addiction crisis in the United States, where one child in eight under the age of eighteen lives with at least one parent dealing with a drug or alcohol problem.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) 4-6 Sixth grader Joseph Oaks claims he isn't a superhero (even if he did fly like Superman once): "I don't have any special powers -- unless / you count my ability to be invisible, / and to survive." Joe's mother gets what he calls "The Itch" and disappears for "days. / Weeks. / Months. / You never know when she'll take off / or when she'll come back." Thus, Joe "know[s] a lot of things / kids shouldn't / have / to know," including housing insecurity (Joe and Grandmum live in her car), poverty, and hunger. Things start to look up when they find "The Overripe Banana," a mobile home in King of the Castle Mobile Home Park. Once settled in, Joe considers his favorite possession, the quilt Grandmum made years ago: he understands that "Grandmum's the thread / holding her, Mom, and me, / separate pieces so different from each other, / together / as a family." Supporting characters, including Joe's teacher, his friends Nick and Hakeem, and the mobile home park's compassionate owner, are well drawn and vividly portrayed. As in Starfish (rev. 5/21), Fipps uses short lines, lots of white space, and an engaging first-person voice to carry the story. A fine example of how a novel in verse can be the perfect vehicle for getting inside the head of a character and creating empathy for what it's like to be him.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024