JUPITER RISING — Review

Thought for the Day:

“Being a writer is a very particular sort of job: It’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.”
~ Neil Gaiman ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Voice, voice, voice. Any writer who has watched a webinar or attended a conference has heard agents and editors talk about how important voice is. HERE is a great post by Beem Weeks writing on the Story Empire Blog with a post called Finding Your Signature: 10 Ways to Craft an Unforgettable Narrative Voice.

Before you scare yourself out of doing revisions, HERE is a great Narrative Nugget from Janice Hardy that will help you get to it.

We writers find a great deal of information on the importance of good beginnings and how to fix saggy middles, but not much about hitting the finish line. HERE Erin Entrada Kelly has a great post called You Have Reached the End: Things to keep in mind as you write toward The End. Don’t miss this one.

I enjoyed my mini-break. My daughter, Maggie, was visiting, and we had lots of family things to do while she was here. She is in Seattle now, busy trying to find a place to live and doing touristy things to get to know her new home better. I have been spending most of my time parked in front of my television as my favorite tennis tournament, Wimbledon, was going on. After the weirdness of the French Open, I thought Wimbledon would put things back to normal with all the usual suspects getting through, but we had a lot of the top players being knocked out early and some promising youngsters moving up through the ranks. It has not been a dull tournament. What time wasn’t taken up by tennis was taken up by baseball and lots of reading. I made a tiny dent in my TBR pile and read some great books. I probably won’t be posting every week through the summer. I’ll take more mini-breaks and do a little traveling and lots more reading. In any case, don’t be surprised if you don’t see posts from me every week.

I mentioned last time I posted that I intended to re-read all of Gary D. Schmidt‘s middle-grade novels. I thought about where I would like to begin. If you ask me which of his books is my favorite, I would have a hard time answering that because there are so many outstanding books on his list, but over the years, the one book of his that I think about all the time is ORBITING JUPITER. Honestly, I think about that book at least every week. The characters were so real to me, and the story just destroyed me. While looking at lists of Schmidt’s books, lo and behold, there was one called JUPITER RISING, a sequel to ORBITING JUPITER. I had no idea. How did I miss that? Anyway, I got a copy right away and read it in one sitting. Holy smoke. He did it again. I only wish I had taken the time to re-read ORBITING JUPITER before I read JUPITER RISING. There are many details I’ve forgotten. So I plan to re-read both books back to back soon.

Jack Hurd is called in by his PE teacher, Coach Sweiteck, and informed Jack that he will start running with some of the JV boys. Jay Perkins and two of his thugs show up and lay out the rules for daily runs for Jack. It’s clear they are only doing this because the coach told them to. Like Jack had a choice. The thugs whine about having to run with an eighth grader, but everyone does what the coach says. Soon, Jack is getting better, Jay is being a little nicer, and the thugs have stopped showing up. Jay comes to the house one day and, while there, meets Jupiter, Jack’s little sister. The family is in the process of adopting Jupiter. She is three and has Jack firmly wrapped around her little finger. It takes her about a minute to have Jay wrapped, too. Jupiter is the daughter of Joseph, who had been Jack’s foster brother and who had tragically died. (You really need to read the first book.) Jack promised himself that he would always know Jupiter was being taken care of and loved. But Jupiter’s grandparents suddenly decide they want her, after ignoring her existence for a long time. Jack’s family has a fight on their hands. And where does Jay stand on all this? You will be surprised.

Finding a new book by Gary D. Schmidt is such a gift. JUPITER RISING was published a couple years ago, and I don’t know how I missed it, but I am sure glad I found it. Schmidt’s storytelling chops are probably the best in the middle-grade business. He creates characters that inhabit your soul as you read his books and after. His dialogue always sounds perfectly natural and right for the characters’ ages. If you haven’t read it, you really should. If you read ORBITING JUPITER a long time ago or never, do yourself a favor and read them both in order. I promise you, they are well worth your time. Keep a box of tissues handy.

Please don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.