The Firece and Beautiful World

Returning to school after the summer in which her best friend Tim died of cancer, eleven-year-old Penelope finds her life complicated by the fact that her father has become the school janitor.

Grade 4-6–"Today I started school with my dad instead of my best friend." Penelope Grant, fifth grader in a town so small that the local school has only three classrooms, has recently lost her best friend, Tim, to cancer, and her artistic, restless father is the new janitor. The title refers to those ubiquitous pink message slips, here used by the girl to send notes to Tim. This sweet and accessible story carries the protagonist through the difficult first few days of the school year. It shows her beginning to accept loss and change, and also beginning to see beyond her own narrow perspective. In short, it's a prepubescent coming-of-age novel with some comedy lightening the sorrow. Told in the first person, the story also emphasizes poetry in many ways: Penelope has been to Poetry Therapy (her mother wants her to learn to express her feelings), and she often sees the world as a series of metaphors (her father's "office" at school is compared to a kingdom, with a scepter, a throne, and a drawbridge). While this first novel is not without a few flaws (the father's behavior when he joins the children playing marbles or jumping rope can seem implausible), it is a touching story with an appealing main character and an underlying authenticity.–Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL
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Gr. 4-6. It's been a rough year for fifth-grader Penelope. Her best friend, Tim, died of cancer during the summer, and her father has landed a job as custodian in her own school. Lonely and embarrassed, Penelope begins using pink "while you were out" messages to write notes to Tim in an effort to keep his memory close. There's just enough sense of Tim to make him feel like more than a plot device, but most of the story centers around Penelope working through the love and mortification she feels, and the bravery that comes with opening up to making new friends. This rambles at times, but Kuns has an evocative way with words, taking ordinary situations and painting nuance into them with his descriptions. Bits of humor lighten a story that tackles some sad issues. Ilene Cooper
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