Abstract
Reviewed by: A Soft Place to Land by Janae Marks Elizabeth Bush Marks, Janae A Soft Place to Land. Tegen/HarperCollins, 2021 [288p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780062875877 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780062875907 $8.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 4-6 When Joy’s father was laid off, the family sold their house and downsized to an apartment; the move of twelve-year-old Joy into a smaller bedroom with her younger sister is challenging, and parental bickering has accelerated into what both parents assure their daughters is a temporary separation. Fortunately, the community is supportive, the tweens in the building get along well, and Nora, neighbor and classmate, rapidly turns into a friend. Joy concocts a plan to make money to continue her suspended piano lessons (an absolute must for a girl aspiring to become a film score composer) through a joint dog-walking enterprise with Nora. Her steady ascent toward a new normal goes into a tailspin when she is cornered into revealing the location of the kids’ secret hideout in the building basement, which results in the loss of her new friends—including Nora—and even worse, the loss of a neighbor’s pooch that escapes from Joy during a thunderstorm. There’s some front-loaded authorial orchestration here, but the domino cascade of interrelated mishaps is fully credible, as is the patient rebuilding of trust Joy must undertake with family, friends, and neighbors to pull back on track. Marks has a keen eye and ear for the telling particulars of the family’s struggle to forge ahead in a new setting, and the book is sensitive to everyone’s need for a space to be alone from time to time: kids who need a private, safe place to hang out, and parents who need a respite from perpetual discussion of their shared responsibilities and anxieties. Although the stakes may be lower than those in Marks’ debut From the Desk of Zoe Washington (BCCB 12/19), fans will welcome her introduction to another determined and resilient Black tween heroine. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
Published Version
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