Don't be fooled by the opening battle scene and continuous conflict that drives the story into thinking this is a simple action book. It's tense and fast-paced, yes, but it is also full of moral, psychological, interpersonal, and political conflict. It is a book whose external action deeply considers complicated internal issues.
Jack Hurd lives with his parents on a small farm in Maine. One day in the winter of his 6th grade year, Joseph Brooks comes to live with them as a foster child. Joseph has been in trouble and spent time in a boy's group home, a juvenile detention center, and most recently a high security juvenile prison after allegedly trying to kill a teacher. He is only 14, but is the father of a newborn baby girl. He has never seen his daughter, but loves her and her mother dearly.
This starts off deep, but maybe faux deep. Then it gets heavier and heavier. In the best possible way. It gets authentic. As Nanette digs deeper and deeper to find her authentic self.
It's been a long time since a book has transported me so completely. Has taken me so deeply into myself that I become oblivious to the world around me and my head spins with disconnection when I try to regain awareness. Just me and the book, and nothing else. I started reading and was supposed to stop because life was still going on around me, but I didn't. I couldn't find my way back. So life moved on without me until I finished the book. Now I must figure out how to catch up, but that's okay. It was worth stopping at a special place for a while.
After the death of Jack’s mother, he is suddenly uprooted from his home and placed in a military boarding school. There, he befriends Early, a boy who reads pi as a story and collects newspaper clippings of a great black bear in the mountains nearby. When they unexpectedly find themselves alone at school, they embark on a journey on the Appalachian Trail in search of the bear. Along the way, they meet people who figure into the pi story Early tells. They both discover things about themselves and others in their lives on this great adventure.
Auggy was born with a facial deformity that has always prevented him from attending public school. But now, after many surgeries, he is able to be in the 5th grade. He is just an ordinary kid with an extraordinary face. How can he convince his classmates that he is just like them despite what he looks like?
I'd recommend it without hesitation to most middle grade readers, girls or boys, even those who may not normally pick up realistic fiction.
Lacy believes that magic and science can work side by side. She is a skilled botanist that can harness the power of plants. When her father dies, she tries to stay with her step-mother that believes in good and healing magic. But she always feel the pull of her persuasive and powerful mother who brings out the darkness in her, stripping everything light and kind. Her mother forces Lacy to accompany her to Sacramento, and it is not long before the old darkness resurfaces.
