THE GOODBYE TIME

“Why do people say New Beginnings when they really mean the opposite?” wonders Manhattanite Anna, as her fifth-grade graduation approaches and changes seem to be affecting everyone she knows. Her intellectually gifted 15-year-old brother will be leaving for Harvard soon, and her classmate Michael, who just returned to school after a lengthy absence following his father’s death, will be moving away. While Anna and her best friend, Katy, once role-played their favorite television show, using fake accents to boot, the two become separated by Katy’s anger and sadness when her mentally disabled brother is placed in a care facility. Easing the tween through this period of growing up are her parents’, her brother’s and Michael’s pithy words of wisdom. In this breezy, quick, first-person narrative, Anna teeters between lingering in childhood and becoming a teenager. Mixing age-appropriate feelings and observations too experienced for someone Anna’s age, Conway presents a children’s novel that wants to be YA. Even the cover is ambiguous. (Fiction. 9-12)