Ready to Fall by Marcella Pixley (review)

Ever since his mother died of metastatic breast cancer, Max has found it hard to focus on schoolwork or much of anything, except for the tumor he secretly believes transferred from his mother to his own brain at her death. His father moves Max to Baldwin, an artsy and flexible private school; there Max develops a connection to a colorful old writing teacher and a group of theater kids. Even as he becomes more settled in the program, however, his headaches and certainty of brain cancer haunt him. Pixley, author of the compelling Freak (BCCB 10/07), captures the mental derailing of grief with gentle clarity, and it's understandable that Max, despite the concern of his father and teachers, can't muster interest in school. The theater kids, including the lovely Fish (short for Felicia), for whom Max falls, are credibly complicated and even occasionally unpleasant while still offering emotional space for Max. The tumor conceit is the really original piece here, and while it's convenient that Max ends up so easily disabused of the notion, it's compelling as a somatized sharing of his mother's suffering and also as clinging to "the only part of Mom I have left." This is a keen yet accessible portrait of the way grief can knock you sideways and time and humanity can draw you back. DS