Okay for Now by Gary D. SchmidtMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Doug isn’t happy when his father is fired from his job, which forces the family to move from their home in Long Island to a tiny town called Marysville so he can get more work; in fact, when Doug first sees Marysville, he decides that he hates it and calls his new house ‘The Dump.’
Not surprisingly, Doug’s dad doesn’t like his new job and takes it out on the rest of the family. Things get worse when his brother keeps getting accused of stealing…and things get even worse when his oldest brother returns home from Vietnam in a wheelchair.
However, there are some bright spots in Doug’s life in unsuspecting places: he realizes that he adores the Audubon prints on display at the library, and the librarian teaches him how to draw them; he meets Lil Spicer, the daughter of the town’s store owner, and she helps him get a job delivering groceries for her dad; and his grocery delivering job helps him to meet and get to know people in town. After living in there for a few months, Doug thinks that maybe Marysville isn’t so bad after all.
Readers will immediately like Doug, who played a minor role in the companion novel The Wednesday Wars (Schmidt). Doug uses a believable voice that will be sure to resonate with male and female readers alike. This is an excellent book that I enjoyed so much, I didn’t want it to end!
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment