Poignant, hopeful and thought-provoking, here is a story about real people in our own times who are dealing with a tragedy pure and simple. Nothing dystopian. No sci fi twists. This is our own here and now and we are reminded that sometimes life hands you something that seems so devastating and impossible that you don't know how you're going to cope and suddenly, it turns out to actually be a gift in disguise.
Danielle is waking up to a nightmare that she cannot click away with a remote control. She has to face the fact that while she was babysitting a five year old boy named Humphrey, he ran out into the street chasing a football and ran into the path of an oncoming car. Humphrey did not survive the collision.
Danielle sat in the street and held Humphrey. He is the little guy she babysits for but most importantly, he is a person, a human being, who understands Danielle and "gets her drift" more than anyone else she has ever met. Losing him is enormous. Beyond the guilt and the what ifs lies the fact that she has truly lost her best friend.
How will Danielle recover from the tragedy that has ripped a hole in her life? What will she learn from this excruciating experience? Did she do enough? Did she make a huge mistake? Did she let her little friend down?
This is more than a story of grief and guilt. Through the passageway of her loss, Danielle is about to learn to see her own life more clearly. She will be forced to examine her own relationships and the relationships of her family members. She will make a new friend and discover the complex and shadowy lives of illegal immigrants her own age.
You are going to need your tissue box for this one. This is a story that carefully invites us to share the feelings of Danielle, to watch her make her way up from the dark place, and to begin to look out into the world with all of its warts and challenges and hopefully decide we just might use our own precious life to make a difference.... to add a little bit to the box marked hope for ourselves and for others less fortunate.
978-00802734419 339 pages Ages 13 and up
Recommended by: Barb
