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THE SPACE BETWEEN LOST AND FOUND by Sandy Stark-McGinnis

THE SPACE BETWEEN LOST AND FOUND

by Sandy Stark-McGinnis

Pub Date: April 28th, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0123-3
Publisher: Bloomsbury

For older grade schooler Cassie Rodrigues, the space between lost and found is vast: Her mom has Alzheimer’s disease.

Although her mom is still a young woman, she has an early-onset form of the disease, and it’s progressing rapidly. Diagnosed just months ago, she’s already so affected that she can no longer recall her daughter’s name. Cassie’s life is thrown into disarray as she tries to navigate a new and complex world in which she must strive to help her mother hang onto precious memories and at the same time somehow inspire her worried father to keep things as normal as possible. Since her mother, a powerful swimmer, always dreamed of swimming with the dolphins, Cassie decides to make that happen by stealing her mother away to San Diego—a risky trip she cleverly hides from her father. All this sets up an unusual variation on the absent-parent trope. In addition, amid all the secrets, she still must try to fit in at school and hang onto as regular a life for herself as the desperate situation permits. Alternating the current storyline with chapters that achingly depict their former life, Cassie’s perceptive narration rings true. One result of the intense focus through Cassie’s perspective is that none of the other characters stand out so well. Cassie and her family are white; her best friend is a girl of color.

A sensitive exploration of an unusual problem.

(Fiction. 9-12)