PIGS WILL FLY

In this middle-grade debut, a recently deaf girl moves to the Special Needs class, where she finds unexpected friendship.

Eleven-year-old Kessie is the star pupil of East Bay Primary in St. Lucia. She loves Greek mythology and English idioms, and she’s always playing with language. Kessie has two great problems in life: Though she has a close but stormy relationship with her mum, she’s never known her father. Also, she’s been deaf for three months, the likely permanent result of an ear infection. Add a class bully and a new teacher (Teacher Piper) who seems to despise her, and Kessie’s immediate future looks grim. Then Teacher Haden—whom Kessie loves and wishes would marry her mother—invites her to join his Special Needs class. At first Kessie is insulted. But Teacher Haden tells her of another new girl she won’t want to miss: Milly, a Black albino who knows sign language and also loves Greek mythology. Reluctantly, Kessie agrees to switch. But she soon finds not only that she fits in well with the free spirits of the Special Needs class, but also that her mother and the two teachers have a secret history together. The author writes in the first person and immerses readers in Kessie’s narrative. Kessie’s 11-year-old voice is thoroughly convincing. The only off note comes from the author’s omission of vocative commas (for example: “Try Kessie” rather than “Try, Kessie”; “The piglets need to suckle Haden” rather than “The piglets need to suckle, Haden”), the absence of which doesn’t gel well with Kessie’s voracious appetite for reading and language. Kessie is an in-your-face, somewhat exhausting but always compelling protagonist. Her classmates emerge as quirky, relatable individuals, as do the adult characters. True to the middle-grade world in real life, events in the story pile up quickly and assume momentous importance to their subjects.

Young readers should devour this mile-a-minute introduction to Kessie’s bracingly eclectic adolescent life.