Author: Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo and Ndengo Gladys Mwilelo
Genre: realistic fiction
Similar books: Peak by Roland Smith
The Magic of Melwick Orchard by Rebecca Caprara
Rating:
Summary (provided by publisher): What do you do when you’re facing the impossible?
Ever since the day when everything changed, Cal Scott’s answer has been to run—run from her mother who’s fighting cancer, run from her father whom she can’t forgive, and run from classmates who’ve never seemed to “get” her anyway. The only thing Cal runs toward is nearby Mt. Meteorite, named for the magical meteorite some say crashed there fifty years ago. Cal spends her afternoons plotting to summit the mountain, so she can find the magic she believes will make the impossible possible and heal her mother. But no one has successfully reached its peak—no one who’s lived to tell about it, anyway.
Then Cal meets Rosine Kanambe, a girl who’s faced more impossibles than anyone should have to. Rosine has her own secret plan for the mountain and its magic, and convinces Cal they can summit its peak if they work together. As the girls climb high and dig deep to face the mountain’s challenges, Cal learns from Rosine what real courage looks like, and begins to wonder if the magic she’s been looking for is really the kind she needs.
My opinion: Ferruolo has managed to combine grief, sports, and a refuge story into a single cohesive story, even including hints of magic. And somehow it is still a simple story. There is surprisingly little action. It's primarily an emotional journey - anger and grief and our tendency to run away from hard things. Because of the relative simplicity, kids have plenty of room to contemplate the emotions involved. A solid choice for discussion.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
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