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SPECIAL NOTE: I am serving on the Cybil's Poetry group again this year, this time Round One. I want to remind you that anyone can nominate a favorite book that was published from Oct. 16th, 2015 to Oct. 15th, 2016, when nominations close. Go HERE if you're interested!
Thanks to Net Galley and Kate Beasley, I’ve now met wonderful Gertie Reece Foy who lives with her wise Aunt Rae and her loving father. He’s gone for two weeks before returning for two weeks because he works on an oil rig, but the scenes with him show wisdom, too. Gertie has strength from family, although her mother left them early in Gertie’s life, but still lives in the same town, is about to re-marry and move. Gertie leaps into the story with a bullfrog, certain that this time she will have the “greatest” summer speech on the first day of school. Every student at her school gives those speeches, required stories of summer. As we learn soon, Gertie thinks she isn’t the smartest or the fastest or the tallest, but she knows herself well.
Gertie Reece Foy never gives up. However, each time Gertie has a mission, somehow it seems she must overcome adversity, like that new and pretty Mary Sue that’s moved to town, that one that seems up against all Gertie is aiming to accomplish. The web of fifth grade friendships breaks down because of Mary Sue, and Gertie is hanging on by only one thread, her biggest mission to do the greatest at something, anything. All that’s left of her mother is one locket and briefest of memories while growing up. Gertie wants to be able to do that something so she can go to her mother’s house and let her know she hasn’t been needed at all, because Gertie has become the greatest anyway. No one understands this until she confides in her steadfast friend, Junior, who also never stops being her friend. I’ve been told that if you have one good friend, that is all you need, and it counts a lot in this story. Aunt Rae’s matter-of-fact love counts a lot too, and both together buoy Gertie so she can keep on, sometimes sadly, sometimes desperately. She is not perfect, after all, but wow, she does make her leap to greatness. The book is complex without seeming so. Those young middle graders who read this book might especially cling to Gertie’s secrets, knowing they too have them. And they will see that in spite of everything, there are things that count that perhaps have been overlooked. I loved the characterizations, the hint that every child has a story that calls to us to want to discover more. Kate Beasley shows that she knows fifth graders well.
