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THE LOSERS AT THE CENTER OF THE GALAXY

Name: THE LOSERS AT THE CENTER OF THE GALAXY
Author: Mary Winn Heider
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5542-6

by Mary Winn Heider ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Offbeat and poignant, this is a healing balm for living in an imperfect galaxy.

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Winston and Louise have been in different orbits since their football player dad, who suffered from brain damage, went missing two years ago.

Lenny Volpe had been a quarterback for the Chicago Horribles. His favorite place was the 50-yard line, which he called the center of the galaxy. Winston and Louise haven’t been back to the stadium since attending a failed police press conference there. Grief-stricken, Winston fills the loss with music, specifically playing his tuba in the school band; Louise deals with it by trying to find a cure for brain injuries involving jellyfish and bioluminescence. Winston is only partially distracted from tuba when he notices odd and suspicious behavior by his teachers. Louise, absorbed by her research, is surprised to find room to fangirl wildly popular, civic-minded pop star Kittentown Dynamo and become an animal activist set on rescuing the bear that is the Horribles’ new mascot. There is a distinct Daniel Pinkwater tang to this tale of misfit siblings and their unusual circumstances. The story is interspersed with tender memories of their father, both the great dad he was and the confused person he became. The disparate strands come together in a surreal crescendo at the stadium that leaves Winston and Louise better centered than they have been for years. The book features a default White cast.

Offbeat and poignant, this is a healing balm for living in an imperfect galaxy. (Fiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-7595-5542-6

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE STUPENDOUS SWITCHEROO
by Mary Winn Heider ; illustrated by Chad Sell

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MORTIFICATION OF FOVEA MUNSON
by Mary Winn Heider ; illustrated by Chi Birmingham

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CLUES TO THE UNIVERSE

by Christina Li ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 2021

Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.

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An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.

Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.

Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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NUMBER THE STARS

by Lois Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1989

A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit...

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The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction (Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction—a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.

Five years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. Though ever cautious and fearful of the ubiquitous soldiers, she is largely unaware of the extent of the danger around her; the Resistance kept even its participants safer by telling them as little as possible, and Annemarie has never been told that her older sister Lise died in its service. When the Germans plan to round up the Jews, the Johansens take in Annemarie's friend, Ellen Rosen, and pretend she is their daughter; later, they travel to Uncle Hendrik's house on the coast, where the Rosens and other Jews are transported by fishing boat to Sweden. Apart from Lise's offstage death, there is little violence here; like Annemarie, the reader is protected from the full implications of events—but will be caught up in the suspense and menace of several encounters with soldiers and in Annemarie's courageous run as courier on the night of the escape. The book concludes with the Jews' return, after the war, to homes well kept for them by their neighbors.

A deftly told story that dramatizes how Danes appointed themselves bodyguards—not only for their king, who was in the habit of riding alone in Copenhagen, but for their Jews. (Historical fiction. 9-12)