Change of Place! Percy's Museum by Sara O'Leary

PERCY'S OLD HOUSE WAS PERFECT.

THERE WAS ALWAYS SOMETHING TO DO AND ALWAYS SOMEONE TO DO IT WITH.

Percy lives on a city street of tall houses, close together. Outside the sidewalks are busy with people and kids of all ages, playing, riding scooters and bikes, shopping, walking babies and dogs, all going somewhere, or watching people going places from their windows. But then, one day, Percy doesn't live there anymore.

He moves to the country, where his house sits alone by a pond--and so does Percy, and so does his cat.

HIS NEW HOUSE ISN'T THE SAME.

But there's a quite small house at the end of the yard, just his size, that looks interesting, and there are bees visiting flowers and birds soaring above. Rows of ants from somewhere are busy going someplace, and there are rocks and leaves with interesting shapes that Percy cannot resist drawing. And there are trees to climb, where his little cat shows the way.

TREES LET YOU SEE THE WORLD THE WAY A GIANT WOULD.

In the daytime there are caterpillars changing to cocoons and then to butterflies and birds' eggs hatching into birds, their parents busy bringing them worms. And at night there are stars and owls and racoons, all busy moving here and there and doing things, and Percy learns that...

YOU CAN BE ALONE WITHOUT BEING LONELY.

Percy fills the little house with his drawings and paintings and collections of rocks and cones and seedpods and flowers... and puts up a sign that says PERCY'S MUSEUM on the mailbox by the road, with balloons bouncing in the breeze and a table with glasses and a tall pitcher.

And the little girl with the dog who has been watching him all along brings some friends along to see his museum.

Home is where you make it, as Percy learns in Sara O'Leary's quiet story of coming home wherever you are, Percy's Museum (Groundwood Books, 2021). With Carmen Mok's soft faux naif illustrations and a cozy little cat who sticks with Percy, this story of a big move is a reassuring read for children who are lonely or undergoing a big household move that changes their lives.

The Big Who Knows: Right As Rain by Lindsey Stoddard

I like my bed because it has two inches of foam that remembers my body.

And then, there's my last memory of him, shaking me awake, whispering. "Hey, sleepyhead." Locking pinkies.

Maybe it won't be so bad to leave the bed behind.

"This way we'll start fresh...." Mom says.

With the grief for the loss of her big brother Guthrie, Rain's parents seem to exist in two separate worlds. Her mom hustles about, always rushing off to the next thing. Her dad withdraws to his bed and bedroom, sleeping in his clothes, barely speaking. And Rain knows it is all her fault.

Her mom decides they need a fresh start in a new place, and Rain finds her family leaving their comfortable house in Vermont, her school and best friend Izzy, and moving to a small apartment in New York City, where a lot of people speak Spanish and the school has no library. Her dad is still hiding behind a closed door, her mom is still busying about, and the sixth-grade girl in her building and in her new class seems already to have a grudge against her.

Rain sees the future as a Big Who Knows.

But her teacher is kind and her classroom library has a copy of The One and Only Ivan, the book she had to return unfinished in her old school, and Rain finds that she and Frankie share a passion for running.

I stretch long and gain half a stride on Frankie, but she crosses the line first and pumps her fist toward the sky. I finish just behind her but ahead of the footsteps that chased me the whole way.

"G-g-good race." I look back and see little wispy, tiny, stuttering Amelia. She smiles."Th-th-third place!" she says.

Frankie saunters over and puts up a hand for a high five, and Amelia and I go for it at the same time so our hands all kind of meet.

Frankie reluctantly invites her to join the relay team for the middle-school meet in a few weeks. Together Rain and Frankie recruit classmates Amelia, whose stutter keeps her from speaking to almost everyone, and little Ana, both small but fast runners.

But there is more to be done than just winning a race for Rain.

In books the parents get back together, and it's never the kid's fault if they don't.

But I can't forget that night, and how it is my fault....

Like Ivan, Rain still feels like the one and only, alone with a secret she can't tell her parents. But a lot happens in a few weeks as Rain discovers others dealing with their own loss. Grief after the death of a family member is hard, but Rain and her parents do find a fresh start in a very different place, in Lindsay Stoddard's Right as Rain (Harper, 2019), in which Rain and her parents each find some solace in involvement in their new urban community and in sharing their own guilt and loss at last. Rain is a strong character, revealing her feelings through Stoddard's sensitively written text and the poems she and her reluctant classmate poets share, and helping to build a new family relationship in the Big Who Knows ahead. Says School Library Journal, "This touching middle grade novel addresses the heartache of loss while also providing an insightful, accessible introduction to privilege, homelessness, and gentrification. Honest, gut-wrenching, and hopeful, this is a story about letting people in and discovering you’re a part of something larger.”

Lindsay Stoddard's first book was Just Like Jackie (Harper, 2018).

Standing Out! Geraldine by Elizabeth Lilly

"I AM NOT MOVING!"

"GERALDINE," SAYS MOM. "WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT BEING A DRAMA QUEEN?"

Geraldine is a drama queen, but this time she has good reason. In her old school, where everyone was a giraffe, she didn't exactly stand out in the crowd. But when Dad takes her to her new school, she's the only one who is DIFFERENT--in a great big way!

"Here, I feel like That Giraffe Girl."

Suddenly, Geraldine has become an introvert. Even her voice is tiny and timid.

At lunch time, Geraldine takes to hiding, or trying to hide, behind a tree, but her long neck seems to have no place to go. Then she notices she's not the only one lunching alone.

"I bet you've heard of me," the solitary girl says.

"I'm that girl who wears glasses and likes MATH and likes to organize her food."

Cassie and Geraldine hit it off and soon learn that they have a lot in common. Cassie is a bit different, but she's fun and does a fabulous handstand! Cassie discovers that Geraldine is more than just different, too. She's quite the dancer and a naturally dramatic actress.

And soon, bolstered by their friendship, Geraldine drags Cassie to brave the bunch at the lunch table.

"Cassie can stay in a handstand for 167 seconds," Geraldine announces.

Melinda Bucket is very impressed.

And Geraldine cracks up the whole lunch bunch with her outstanding imitation of the Queen of England, and soon nobody calls her Giraffe Girl anymore.

Geraldine knows that she will always stand out in a crowd in Elizabeth Lilly's Geraldine (Roaring Book Press, 2018) and that's a good thing. Author Elizabeth Lilly' portrayal of Geraldine lets her stand tall and be herself among her new friends, and Lilly's artwork make the most of the possibilities of that long, long neck, as Geraldine dries her eyes on the flag at the top of the flagpole. dunks the basketball on the playground, and is a natural starring as the tallest tree in the school play. Author Lilly's debut is a lighthearted look at being yourself and going with what you've got in a gentle but genuinely funny story about accepting differences. Says Kirkus in their starred review,"Lilly's bright, classic watercolors, brimming with whimsy and charm, create an immersive world of details big and small. Readers will fall in love with Geraldine in this stellar debut."

Wrong-Way Alex: Soccer Surprise by Emma Carlson Berne

Moving is hard.

Alex had lots of friends back in Florida, and she was the star forward for her soccer team. Now she's halfway across the country in Texas. She has one possible friend, Lin, but the other girls on the Strikers team have known each other forever, and her new coach puts her on defense where she has no chance to score. Still Alex tries hard. Then in her first game, something happens.

Without thinking, Alex fell back into the role of a forward. She intercepted the ball. In A quick, one-two dribble. Alex ran for the goal.

The net was wide open. Alex booted the ball into the goal.

SMACK! Nothing was as satisfying as that sound of her foot against the ball.

The ref's whistle blared. "Offsides, penalty! Goal for the Hornets!

"I guess you forgot which team you were playing for," Brooke said to Alex.

She had really screwed up. Alex had scored a goal--for the other team. It happens to everybody, she knows, but Alex is new in Jacksonville, Texas, new to playing defense, new to not being the star forward on her old team, and she is almost speechless. She stammers out a few words about being new to her position after the game, but her teammates stare out the ground and turn away silently.

The fact that her teammates, even Lin, won't even look at her, makes her feel even worse. And the cold-shoulder treatment continues at practice the next day, and at the next game no one passes the ball to her, not even her only new friend. Lin. On the bench, Alex almost loses it. Stifling her tears, she gets up and runs from the field and halfway across town before she stops.

Finally, her sobs slowed. In the reflection of a store window she sees Coach Mike approach. He sits down beside her.

"Alex, I bet it wasn't easy, moving here in the middle of the year and leaving your friends. It may be selfish of me, but I was glad you joined the Strikers. You're a great midfielder. Tall, strong, and quick. I need you at defense."

"But Coach, I don't know if I can play if everyone hates me! And isn't it too late to apologize to the team?" Alex confesses.

"It's never too late. Mistakes happen. But it would make everyone feel better if you just said those two magic words."

It's hard for Alex to face the hostility of her team, but Coach is right. Saying "I'm sorry," breaks the ice, in Emma Carlson Berne's Soccer Surprise (Jake Maddox Girl Sports Stories) (Capstone Press). The author takes one sports event, a common but serious mistake that affects the whole team, and skillfully explores the social situation and the feeling experienced by all involved. Everyone screws up sometime, and being a team member requires a particular set of skills outside playing ability itself--not hogging the ball, admitting failures, and forgiving mistakes by others. This book, part of the Jake Maddox Sports Stories series, ably explains the emotions experienced by a new player and by the rest of the team when a significant mistake is made. Kids who love soccer--or basketball or baseball or other such sports--will find this beginning chapter book easy reading and will probably find themselves sometime on both sides of that situation, making this book good vicarious experience for sports lovers.

(Yawn!) Meet the Dullards by Sara Pennypacker

ONE DAY MR. AND MRS. DULLARD HAD A NASTY SURPRISE.

The Dullards found their children reading--books!

Then their kids, Blanda, Borely, and little Dud, tried to slip outside to play. Next they're going to want to go to school, their parents fretted!

"WHERE DID WE GO WRONG?" SAID MRS. DULLARD.

"PERHAPS IT'S THIS PLACE," SPECULATED MR. DULLARD. "LAST FALL, I REMEMBER, THE LEAVES CHANGED COLOR.

IT'S LIKE A CIRCUS AROUND HERE."

The Dullards decide to try a move to a duller part of town. They repaint the new place, first debating over whether gray walls will remind the kids of paved roads and over-stimulating travel.

THAT COULD MAKE THE KIDS WANT TO GO SOMEWHERE.

Brown paint is nixed for fear it might inspire a desire to try pottery making. The Dullards settle on a mixture of the two--greige, a color guaranteed not remind anyone of anything anybody wants to think about for long.

With the environment suitably quieting, it's time for a little family togetherness time.

Leading the children away from the unplugged television set, the parents try to divert their attention from the freshly painted walls, like with some nice blank sheets of paper. But, alas....

THEY WERE COMPLETELY MESMERIZED.

ALL DAY LONG THE DULLARDS WATCHED THE PAINT DRY.

Parenting is never easy, and in Sara Pennypacker's Meet the Dullards (Balzer + Bray, 2015), Mr. and Mrs. Dullard are in no danger of be accused of encouraging free-range children. Artist Daniel Salmieri is clearly in on satirizing the hover-parent, attiring his dull, duller, dullest family in flat, shapeless gray garb, while using the illustrative device of the window through which the kids are sometimes seen trying to overstimulate themselves by outdoor play, or even worse, escaping to the circus which has just come to town (stealthily advertised in a poster in the background of one page). Kids will get the spoof, and parents will enjoy the satiric twist on protective parenting, but one reviewer takes an ironic stand: "I appreciated that Pennypacker resolves her story without forcing Mr. and Mrs. Dullard to embrace spontaneity and imagination and color and all the other things that movies and books always insist make life worth living. (Those things do make life worth living, but it's tiresome to keep hearing about it.)" says the curmudgeonly New York Times reviewer Bruce Handy.

Home Is Where the Heart Is: I Want To Go Home Now! (A Little Princess Story) by Tony Ross

ONE DAY THE QUEEN FOUND A NEW CASTLE. "THIS ONE'S TOO SMALL, NOW THAT WE HAVE YOUR BROTHER!" SAID THE QUEEN.

"BUT... I DON'T WANT TO LIVE ANYWHERE ELSE!" SAID THE LITTLE PRINCESS.

"OH, YES, YOU DO!"

Mom (the Queen) is super-psyched over the new castle. There is a big bedroom for the Little Princess, and her baby brother has his own room, too. There is a super-snaZZy kitchen, with all the latest features. And there's plenty of space for that lot of, um, retainers to hang out away from their castle courtyard.

But the Little Princess is homesick--homesick for the old castle.

"I WANT TO GO HOME!" SHE MOANED. "NOW!"

"YOU ARE HOME!" INSISTED THE QUEEN.

But the Little Princess continues to sulk and weep and moan about going home to the old castle. At last the Queen decides to take her back for a quick visit to their old place, now owned by the Duke of Somewhere-or-Other.

But things have changed. The Duke has painted the castle pink and taken the Princess's old room to decorate in his own style. The Duchess has re-decorated the old kitchen, and the new owners have turned the Little Princess's garden into a parking lot for their collection of  vintage cars. The Duke and Duchess are really proud of their new digs, so proud that that when they serve tea and cakes, the Duchess admonishes the Princess not to drop a single crumb.

"AFTER ALL, WE DON'T WANT BIRDS, DO WE?

WE HAVE TO VACUUM THE GRASS EVERY DAY AS IT IS!" SHE COMPLAINS.

The Little Princess looks around. This castle doesn't feel like home anymore.

"I WANT TO GO HOME!" SHE INSISTED.

The Queen concurs, and home they go, where there are crumbs and birds and mud puddles to play in, in Tony Ross's latest in his popular Little Princess series, I Want to Go Home! (A Little Princess Story) (Anderson Press, 2014). Moving from the only home they've ever known is hard for youngsters, but Tony Ross's story lets his young readers share their tears and feelings while reminding them that the things that matter--family and family ways--never change. Ross's warm and funny illustrations are classic castle kitsch, with baby brother on his royal potty, and the Little Princess, with her too-big crown down to her eyebrows and her droopy little bear with his crown riding low, offer pathos and humor in equal doses. As School Library Journal says, "Ross continues his tradition of illuminating issues that trouble young children. A great new chapter in this series."

My Buddy Wrote Me A Letter! Herman's Letter by Tom Percival

DEAR HERMAN,

HOW ARE YOU? MY NEW HOME IS OKAY, BUT IT'S NOT THE SAME WITHOUT YOU.

THE WEATHER IS NICE AND SUNNY AND I HAVE MADE SOME NEW FRIENDS.

IN FACT, THEY HAVE JUST COME OVER!

GOTTA RUN!

YOUR BEST FRIEND,
HENRY

Herman and Henry had been friends forever. They spent all their time together, playing pirate in their treehouse or concocting secret codes and a secret handshake for their hidden clubhouse. When Henry has to move far, far away, the two old friends promise to write each other faithfully.

Herman is happy to find Henry's first letter in his mailbox, but when he opens it, what he reads makes him even sadder. Henry, it seems, has a new life and new friends, while he is just moping alone. He knows he should write back to Henry, but what is there is say? He has no new friends and no fun to report. Miserable, he puts off answering that letter. Finally, he gets another letter from Henry.

DEAR HERMAN,

GUESS WHAT?

I HAD A RIDE IN A HOT-AIR BALLOON! I WISH YOU COULD HAVE BEEN THERE.

I HAVEN'T RECEIVED ANY OF YOUR LETTERS. I MISS YOU SO MUCH!

YOU ARE MY BEST FRIEND IN THE WORLD. I HOPE YOU WILL VISIT SOON.

Herman is filled with hope. Henry is still his best friend! He sits right down and writes that letter to Henry, but when he hustles through the snow to mail it, he finds that the Post Office is closed for the winter. Although his hibernation time is fast approaching, Herman realizes that he must deliver the letter to Henry himself.

Growing sleepier and sleepier, Herman sets out. He crosses frozen rivers, only to find himself facing a climb up a very tall mountain.

"OH, BOTHER!"

Will Herman hand deliver his letter before hibernation sets in? Will the best friends be reunited? In Tom Percival's Herman's Letter (Bloomsbury, 2014), there's some suspense as Herman fights his way over frosty hill and dale, crevasse and cliff, but the main fun in that this story is told through the best friends' letters. Many kids have lost a best friend to a move, and readers need only to lift the flap of the carefully addressed brown envelopes to know what's going on in the best friends' minds. Along with Percival's appealing illustrations, the epistolary picture book has a lot of emotional and interactive appeal for young readers not to mention a curriculum tie-in for kids just learning how to write a friendly letter for themselves.

Looking for Home: The Perfect Place by Teresa E. Harris

Dad started for the door.

"You act like we're a burden to some other life you want to live," Mom said to his back.

Dad turned. His eyes and shoulders seemed to droop as he stared at the three of us. As if we truly were too heavy for him to bear.

"I'm just trying to find the perfect place for us." he said. "The perfect place."

I believed him.

As Mom's Aunt Grace had warned her, Dad is a rolling stone, always chasing the perfect place. He moves them often, but never to a perfect place, and she's learned not to make friends that she'll just have to leave over and over.

Now Dad's gone again, without a word, and Mom's only clue is a credit card receipt from some little town down in North Carolina. Leaving at night, Mom loads them up, with only their clothes and little sister Tiffany's Mr. Teddy Daniels in pillowcases, and heads south with five dollars and three-quarters of a tank of gas.

Her first stop is down a gravelly road in Virginia, where Treasure and Tiffany meet their Great-Aunt Grace and learn that their mom is going on to search for their dad alone, leaving them behind with her aunt.

"Here we are," Mom says. We're face to face with a green and white house that looks like the victim of a serious beat down, with grubby aluminum siding and a porch screen with more holes than screen.

"Let's get this over with," Mom says. The heat hits every square inch of my body. It's humid in Jersey, but this--this is like being inside someone's mouth. "Listen to me and listen good. Great-Aunt Grace does not tolerate nonsense, so you need to be on your best behavior and more grateful than you've ever been."

Great-Aunt Grace is tall and broad-shouldered, with big thick-fingered hands and feet like stretch limos. She does not smile.

"Have you lost your mind, Lisa? What about these kids?"

Great-Aunt Grace didn't invent the term, but she's a believer in tough love, as Treasure and Tiffany soon learn. She may have been arrested for confiscating a teenager's too-loud radio one time, but there's no doubt that she's a person to be reckoned with in Black Lake, Virginia. She assigns chores, gets them up at dawn to a breakfast of dry eggs and burnt bacon, hikes them three miles to town, and puts them to work in her candy store, Grace's Goodies. She dresses them up in the best clothes they've got and hauls them off to church on Sunday, where over their protests she signs them up for Camp Jesus Saves Summer Bible School. Giving Great-Aunt Grace some sass about Bible School gets Treasure nowhere. She gets it that Black Lake is a long way from New Jersey.

Treasure is used to being a loner, but when the rich and mean Jaguar and her sidekick Pamela trash Grace's store and start picking on Tiffany, she and Jaguar get into trash can-spilling fight at Camp Jesus Saves. And in a first glimmer of empathy, Great-Aunt Grace gets to the truth and heads off to give Jaguar's father, Reverend Burroughs, a piece of her mind. Jaguar backs off with the bullying, and Treasure accepts the erudite professor's son Terrence, who admires her vocabulary and figures they're kindred spirits, as her "associate," not quite friend and certainly not her boyfriend. And spying on Aunt Grace late at night, she discovers that her aunt is knitting new clothes for Mr. Teddy Daniels to replace the ones Mom left behind. Treasure hangs tough and puts all her hopes into the rock-skipping wishes that Terrence teaches her at the lake.

But when Treasure screws up her courage to call their landlord back in New Jersey, she learns that a letter from her father has come in the mail. And there's a return address on the envelope. Inside is a note:

I'm sorry. I love you all.

Treasure secretly calls her mom with the address, but when they arrive, they find an empty rusty trailer and Dad is long gone.

"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in," said Robert Frost, and as the three turn around and head north, Treasure realizes that the perfect place is where someone loves you enough to give you a home, and she knows where that place is.

In a notable debut, Teresa E. Harris' forthcoming The Perfect Place (Clarion Books, 2014) offers a realistic novel starring a spirited main character and a cast of all-too-real characters, true-to-life situations, a couple of sidebar mysteries to solve, plenty of down home humor and homespun wisdom, and above all, what Beverly Cleary's Ramona called "a good, sticking-together family." Each character is lovingly fleshed out in full humanity, and there is a setting that you can feel and taste and a crackling plot that doesn't flag. This story's closest literary relatives are Richard Peck's depression-era Newbery-winning A Long Way From Chicago and sequel A Year Down Yonder, pretty illustrious company.