Victoria poet and award-winning children’s author Sara Cassidy has written a novel-in-verse that is both readable and appealing. Tuck works at a fast-food restaurant and lives with his mother. Her unreliable boyfriend has left them—something Tuck is grateful for, as the man used to “visit” his bedroom at night. Tuck has a long-standing crush on a girl at school named Grace. His tangled feelings (the all-too-common ones of guilt over actions that aren’t his fault) keep him from telling the girl that he loves her. Meanwhile, Tuck has been pressed into action, recruiting his fellow workers to join a union—a distraction that, with the help of a union organizer, leads him to a therapist who helps him out of his self-loathing and into a happy relationship with Grace. The book includes this warning: “This novel alludes to the sexual assault of a boy . . . Readers may want to emotionally prepare.”

Bibliography: No
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Source: Books BC - BC Books for Schools

Les livres de Sara Cassidy ont &eacutet&eacute finalistes pour de nombreux prix : le Chocolate Lily Award pour Black Gold et Blackberry Juice ; le Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award pour A Boy Named Queen ; le Bolen Books Children’s Book Prize pour Skylark ainsi que le Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature. Deux de ses titres, A Boy Named Queen et Double Play, ont &eacutet&eacute s&eacutelectionn&eacutes par la Junior Library Guild. Sara Cassidy a publi&eacute de nombreux recueils de po&eacutesie, œuvres de fiction et ouvrages documentaires pour adultes. Elle vit &agrave Victoria en Colombie-Britannique.

Sara Cassidy's profile page

• Commended, CCBC Best Books for Kids & Teens
• Commended, Top Grade: CanLit for the Classroom

“This brief verse novel packs a punch: The poems are concise yet robust and convey a change in tone from sobering and intense to hopeful...Moving and accessible.”

Kirkus Reviews

“A sweet love story…Recommended.”

CM: Canadian Review of Materials

“Succinctly told, and packs an emotional punch, exploring the themes of losing and finding one's voice, overcoming trauma, and the healing power of love.”

Canadian Children's Book Centre (CCBC) Canadian Children’s Book News