Awards

• Short-listed for Bluebonnet Awards 2008
• Short-listed for California Young Reader Medal (Middle School) 2008
• Short-listed for Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award 2008
• Short-listed for Sunshine State Young Reader's Award (Grades 6-8) 2008

Overview

Since the death of his mother, Tobin's family life and school life have been in disarray, but after he starts raising chickens with his seventh-grade classmate, Henry, everything starts to fall into place.

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9780689858161

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Reviews

* ...strong narration and the child's struggle with forgiveness make for poignant, aching drama.-- Booklist, starred review * This is a refreshingly well-written encounter with richly developed and well-defined characters whom readers won't soon forget.-- School Library Journal, STAR * Tobin's own blossoming, through friendship, and the rediscovery of his family, and the love for and of his chickens, is entirely satisfying--just right.-- Kirkus Reviews, STAR

Seventh-grader Tobin has pretty much flown under the radar most of his life, only stealing a paper clip now and then to prove his relationship to the rest of his juvenile-delinquent family. Why now, then, does Henry the new kid, seem to want to adopt him as a bosom buddy? Despite himself, Tobin finds himself falling into a friendship with Henry and his little brother Harrison, and pretty soon, he's raising chickens as part of a joint scientific-entrepreneurial project the two brothers have cooked up. Aside from having a passel of criminal siblings, Tobin's mother has died, his father parents by neglect and his feisty Granny's interference has landed him in foster care. Tobin narrates his story, his voice appealingly self-deprecatory and earthy. Remarkably enough, the Social Services intervention turns out to be just the right thing to pull the family back together, but the process unfolds so unpresumptuously that readers will be rooting for them all the way. Tobin's own blossoming, through friendship, and the rediscovery of his family, and the love for and of his chickens, is entirely satisfying-just right. (Fiction. 10-14) (Kirkus Reviews)

This is a refreshingly well-written encounter with richly developed and well-defined characters whom readers won't soon forget. <p> -- School Library Journal , starred review

Author Information

Frances O'Roark Dowell is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of Dovey Coe, which won the Edgar Award and the William Allen White Award; Where I'd Like to Be; The Secret Language of Girls and its sequels The Kind of Friends We Used to Be and The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away; Chicken Boy; Shooting the Moon, which was awarded the Christopher Award; the Phineas L. MacGuire series; Falling In; The Second Life of Abigail Walker, which received three starred reviews; Anybody Shining; Ten Miles Past Normal; Trouble the Water; the Sam the Man series; The Class; How to Build a Story; and most recently, Hazard. She lives with her family in Durham, North Carolina. Connect with Frances online at FrancesDowell.com.

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