Saturdays With Hitchcock

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“Everybody’s a dreamer and everybody’s a star

And everybody’s in show biz, it doesn’t matter who you are

And those who are successful

Be always on your guard

Success walks hand in hand with failure

Along Hollywood Boulevard”

--The Kinks “Celluloid Heroes” (1972)

“Uncle Walt narrows his eyes and leans across the table. ‘Okay, Maisie, what’s going on? Are you still mad at me? I get it if you are, but--’

‘That’s not it,’ I tell him, although maybe a little part of me is still mad. Once somebody says something that hurts you, you can’t forget about it right away, even if you want to. Which is one reason I don’t want to talk to Cyrus until I know what to say to him. What if I say the wrong thing, and he never forgives me? And then maybe he gets mad and says something I can’t forget?

‘Well, what then? Did you have a fight with Cy or something?’

‘No! I mean sort of. It’s Gary’s fault. He’s always hanging around with us now and...making everything weird.’

Uncle Walt nods. ‘Because Gary likes you.’

I shrug. ‘I guess so.’

‘And Cyrus likes Gary,’ Uncle Walt says.

My head swivels and I stare at him, then spit out the bite of bagel I’m never going to be able to swallow now. ‘How did you…? I didn’t tell you that!’

‘I’ve got eyes, Hitch, and nothing else to do but sit around here and watch everybody. That’s an actor’s job, you know. To figure out why people do what they do.’

‘You can’t know! I promised Cyrus I wouldn’t tell anybody!’

‘You didn’t tell me, and I won’t tell anybody else. I’m just good at picking things up. The way Gary looks at you. The way Cyrus looks at Gary. It was kind of obvious.’

I push my plate away. ‘Well, it wasn’t obvious to me! Cy’s been my best friend my whole life, and I didn’t know this big thing about him. I feel like maybe I don’t really know him at all. I mean, what else hasn’t he told me?’

Uncle Walt reaches over and puts his hand on my head, which would annoy me if anybody else did it. ‘Maze, Cy probably didn’t know either until recently. I’m guessing Gary is the first boy he’s been attracted to. Or at least this is the first time Cy really understood what the attraction meant.’”

Maisie has had an idyllic childhood In the little town of New Aztec, Illinois, but as her sixth grade year winds down, she encounters unsettling changes. The list is topped off by Cy, her lifelong friend, neighbor, and fellow twelve year-old, coming out to her as gay before he tells anyone else in the world.

Perhaps the most critical change is that her maternal grandmother, who lives close by, is showing signs of dementia. For instance, she’s forgetting that her husband and her cat have both passed away. Maisiebegins seeing signs of this just after her Uncle Walt, an actor still seeking his big break, comes back home from L.A. to convalesce after breaking his collarbone and two ribs while performing a movie stunt. To make matters worse, Maisie’s mom loses her job due to a budget cutback.

Maisie is working on an end-of-the-year school assignment, a filmed oral history of her grandmother. She discovers that, as a teenager, her grandmother worked with a young man and one enchanted evening, they shared a dance and a kiss. The young man was subsequently involved in a tragic incident before leaving town to serve in the Navy and later pursue a career in New York City. Meanwhile, her grandmother met Maisie’s now-deceased grandfather.

It turns out that her grandmother’s erstwhile suitor is now the curmudgeonly old guy who runs the downtown movie theater where Maisie and Cy go to watch Saturday matinees of classic films.

What will happen after Maisie reconnects her grandmother with her grandmother’s first love, Hank Schmitz? How will Maisie’s friendship with Cy be affected by the presence of Gary? What’s the secret at the root of the friction between Maisie’s mom and Uncle Walt?

In SATURDAYS WITH HITCHCOCK, we see the foundations of Maisie’s idyllic childhood world being chipped away. Learning more about the stories of the people around her, she realises that adults make choices that often lead to unexpected consequences, and that they don’t necessarily end up with what they want.

As Maisie shares her feelings about getting attention from a boy for the first time, and as Cy recognizes that he’s gay, we see these issues addressed in an innocent, effective, and genuine manner. Middle grade readers will be fortunate to run across this book.

Full of references to Maisie and Cy’s oft-watched, beloved classic movies, SATURDAYS WITH HITCHCOCK is a beautiful coming of age story.

272 pages 978-1-58089-775-4 Ages 10-14

Recommended by: Richie Partington, MLIS, California USA

See more of his recommendations: https://richiespicks.com/

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