Six kids......
Jake's Aunt Cece is getting married for the two milionth time and they expect him to wear hot pink, rose-infested socks.
Cassie's father has moved her again and again and again and she doesn't ever want to move again. She's left her best friend three times and has moved back again three times. Her dad's about to get married - again - and just maybe that will keep him in one place for a while.
There are kids at schools that teachers like. Quagmire Tiarello is not one of those kids. He made war on Mrs. Tyler from the moment he heard her tell another teacher, "I'd call a parent-teacher conference on him ...but you know his mom is such a mess. She won't do a thing about it." Then Mrs. Harken comes along and she gives him a look and it's a look he hasn't ever seen before and he's not sure what it means.
"Speak up." Lily is always being told to speak up but she's figured out some truths about that....
Lily's favorite thing is coming home where her mother will touch her head and ask her how her day went. Home is where Lily is safe. Home is where no one makes Lily feel small and less than.
Nick's mother decided he should be in the school band. She'd gone to three school choral concerts and decided an instrument was the way to go. That's when Nick's grandfather got up, left the room and came back with his old trumpet...so Nick plays the trumpet now. It can get ugly.
Nick's phone used to be only for checking in with her mom when he got home. Not anymore.
Mac Silva is always in a good mood. At 7:40am he has enthusiasm - sure he's in school - but he's beating out a drum beat as he passes locker after locker. Today the Silva tee shirt says Noxious Weeds. Everybody's Problem.
Middle school where the cliques abound. Where will you fit in? For these six kids it turns out that at least on Tuesday and Thursday of every week they have a place to go where their world becomes impossibly awesome. They come alive and reach into themselves and discover something truly amazing - and it turns out that together they are pretty incredible.
Mr. Lewis is one of those teachers who just really "gets" kids. His room is the Jazz Lab and that's where Jake, Cassie, Mac, Nick, Lily and eventually Quag find their place. Maybe it doesn't start out perfectly but after some Tuesdays and Thursdays things really start to explode. It's just awesome.
So, when fiscal responsibility comes to call, and it appears that Jazz Lab and a bunch of other electives and clubs are going to be axed due to budget cuts, this team finds their voices and decides to stand up and fight for what matters to them the most.... but will their parents finally listen? Will the teachers finally listen? Will anyone listen?
Sometimes those kids the teachers don't like come up with some pretty cool ideas!
272 pages 978-0358645498 Ages 9-13
Keywords: middle school, belonging, being included, finding yourself, finding your voice, music, jazz, Fine Arts Curriculum, friends, friendship, understanding others, family life, dysfunctional family, 9 year old, 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old, 13 year old, standing up for yourself
Recommended by: Barb Langridge, abookandahug.com
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In a timely, insightful story told with sparkling wit and heart, young musicians protesting plans for budget cuts navigate miscalculations, indifferent adults, and unexpected loss as they discover the power of speaking out and the value of listening.
“A brave and dazzling debut, this timely novel is a blueprint for hope.”—Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medalist and best-selling author of The One and Only Ivan
“Keen and clear and fiercely funny.”—Linda Sue Park, Newbery Medalist and best-selling author of A Long Walk to Water
“Brilliant, sharp, comic, poignant, and true.”— Gary D. Schmidt, two-time Newbery Honor-winning author of The Wednesday Wars
“A splendid novel filled with honesty and heart.”—Karina Yan Glaser, best-selling author of the Vanderbeekers series.
Fifth period is hands down the best time of day in Connor U. Eubanks Middle School, because that’s when Mr. Lewis teaches Jazz Lab. So his students are devastated when their beloved teacher quits abruptly. Once they make a connection between budget cuts and Mr. Lewis’s disappearance, they hatch a plan: stop the cuts, save their class.
Soon, they become an unlikely band of crusaders, and their quest quickly snowballs into something much bigger—a movement involving the whole middle school. But the adults in charge seem determined to ignore their every protest. How can the kids make themselves heard?---from the publisher
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“Music is what we like to play
All day all day all day all day all day
To soothe your soul, yeah”
– War (1971)
“...[T]he research finds that increases in [public school] spending lead to improved student outcomes, ranging from test scores, to graduation, to college attendance, to adult earnings and poverty.
These findings hold across a variety of studies and settings in the United States. Notably, dollar-per-dollar effects are larger for low-income students. Effects are also larger and more consistently positive with operational spending—teachers, support staff, materials—than for spending on facilities…”
– Public Policy Institute of California, “Understanding the Effects of School Funding” (2022)
Cassie [back in fourth grade]:
“The last guy got up with a saxophone. He looked like a grandpa–deep wrinkles traced through his brown skin and hair all white–but a fierce grandpa. Like maybe a grandpa who was a little mad at them for something. Didn’t make jokes or talk to them in that super-friendly voice that grownups use on kids when they want them to be on their side. Just glared until everybody shut up. Didn’t need to say a thing. Cassie was impressed.
Then he played the longest and sweetest note.
It started out soft like a whisper. But richer. Then it washed out over the room like sunshine. It went on and on and on. If that happened now, Cassie would know that he was using circular breathing, But no one in that room had heard of that back then. Everyone thought he was holding his breath that long. Cassie sure did.
Eyes got wider and wider. Charlie forgot about disassembling his chair. A ‘No way’ came from someone behind Cassie. Cassie could feel something inside her expanding, expanding, expanding, even as she wondered how on earth this grandpa could not need the world’s largest breath. And just when she was sure that the guy was going to pass out dead on the music room floor, he launched into these notes that were like a beating heart–percussive, deep, rhythmic. Then he sped it up till it was more like a heart attack. Then flicked notes like pebbles being skipped across still water. After that came a part that was like the worst argument Cassie had ever had with her dad.
And then. Then he was playing a scream. Like he’d put up with something so long that he couldn’t stand it one second longer. So he went out on the porch in front of his house and screamed until the birds flew out of the trees and the streetlights shattered.
Then silence.”
Lily [now, in eighth grade]:
“Lily remembers a day when she was little, maybe three or something, when, sun warm on her shoulders, she spent the whole afternoon jumping off the dock behind her house. She'd run and jump, and her dad would catch her and swim her back to the dock. Then she’d run and jump again. Again. Again. It never occurred to her that he might not catch her. She wasn’t scared to fling herself as far out over the shining water as she could.
Now she knows that you can’t always trust that. Now she knows that people can get distracted or busy. Or maybe decide that you should learn to swim back on your own. She’s not sure what happened with her dad. But she knows you have to be careful about jumping. She’s not three anymore.
But Mr. Lewis’s class is different. He makes it different. Safer than the rest of the world somehow while still being exciting.
Now, more than half a year into Jazz Lab, it can feel like that sunny dock some days. It can feel like she can close her eyes and fling herself out over the sea of silvery notes, arms windmilling through the air in the sheer joy of jumping.”
PLAYING THROUGH THE TURNAROUND is a coming-of-age story featuring six young people. All but one are talented young musicians who have auditioned into the school’s eighth grade Jazz Lab class. It’s taught by legendary, beyond-retirement-aged Mr. Lewis, and completion of the class guarantees each of these kids a spot next year in Mr. Lewis’s high school jazz ensemble.
As they learn to collaborate in the art of jazz improvisation, friendships develop and grow in the process. There are many wonderful scenes depicting the sometimes complicated interrelationships.
Then everything goes wrong. “Fiscal responsibility” rears its political head and threatens to eliminate many of their school district’s elective classes. Then Mr. Lewis is suddenly gone. The friends now join together as newly minted activists to try to save the threatened classes and secure Mr. Lewis’s return.
Alternating between the voices and points of view of the six characters, PLAYING THROUGH THE TURNAROUND provides a vivid characterization of each of these young people. From the beginning, each student character is quite rounded and distinctive. Dealing with family problems, bullies, and the unreasonable school principal, they are all fascinating and unique people. They are amazing, amusing, and passionate.
And when cornered, one of them can even break a nose.
The evidence is abundant that the long-run costs to society and taxpayers of undereducated grownups far exceed the money “saved” by politically-charged school budget austerity measures. Given the complexities and world-threatening challenges to be inherited by today’s upcoming generations, it would make more sense to establish universal public school Pre-K classes and free public community colleges. Sure, it means some more funding but, given the future stakes, I put my money on well-educated young people. The alternative is a penny-wise/pound-foolish mistake.
Whatever your favorite band or your ideas on school budgets, PLAYING THROUGH THE TURNAROUND is a winner.
Richie Partington, MLIS
See more of Richie's picks: https://richiespicks.pbworks.com
