Hound Dog True (review)

Mattie Breen finds purpose in assisting her uncle Potluck, the custodian at her new elementary school (her fourth new school in five years), so she decides that she is going to offer herself as his apprentice in the study of "janitorial pursuits" rather than face another year of lunches and recesses alone. She writes all of her custodial notes in a notebook, where she also jots down the occasional story. Then Mattie meets Quincy, the niece of a neighbor, who has a matter-of-fact "way of talking—flat and dull, like stones dropping plunk, plunk in a puddle" that emotional Mattie finds both fascinating and terrifying, and the two begin an awkward friendship. An on-the-job accident that was questionably Mattie's fault and a mother prone to escapism further add to this thoughtful tale of an imaginative kid who is repeatedly thrust into new situations. The narration deftly reveals Mattie as an acutely shy girl who constantly second-guesses herself and lives with a deep fear of nothing and everything all at once. Uncle Potluck is the solid adult who eventually calls out Mattie's mother for running her daughter all over the place, and Mattie finds considerable comfort in his gregarious presence. Quincy's complexities add further to the dimensionality of the novel, as Mattie eventually comes to realize that her friend is not nearly as unaffected as she chooses to portray herself. More delicate than Urban's A Crooked Kind of Perfect (BCCB 2/08), this pervasively sad yet ultimately hopeful story will speak to many young readers.