In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Center of Everything by Linda Urban
  • Deborah Stevenson
Urban, Linda . The Center of Everything. Harcourt, 2013. [208p]. ISBN 978-0-547-76348-4 $15.99 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 4-6.

Solid, reliable, middle-of-the-pack girl Ruby has a secret guilt: when her beloved grandmother, Gigi, lay dying and frantically besought Ruby to "listen," an alarmed Ruby backed away, fleeing the scene. Desperately looking for a do-over to hear Gigi's words, Ruby believes that fate is telling her that she will have just such a chance: on her twelfth birthday, she successfully flicked a penny through the hole in the bronze doughnut held by her town's statue of Captain Bunning (a maneuver that traditionally grants the coin-tosser a wish), and now she's won the Bunning Day essay contest that means that at the town's annual ceremonies all ears will be on her. Will that be the moment she can finally hear what Gigi wanted her to know? Urban does a sci-fi level of world-building here, creating a diverse and colorful small New England town (reminiscent of the Gilmore Girls' Stars Hollow) that's focused on the legend of the founding father's invention of the doughnut hole and has a panoply of plausible rituals built on it. She also compactly, gently addresses some common aspects of grief: the isolation (Ruby feels like everyone but her has gotten over Gigi's death), the regrets, the bargaining, and the epistemological questions about meaning. One of Ruby's main tasks is to let go of her belief in an ordered universe where events operate as signs and feel her way into a more random and unpredictable existence ("What if there is no such thing as 'supposed to'?"). With its compact trim size and easygoing style, this is a terrific first step up for kids who are just beginning to explore more complicated novels as well as an intriguing read for those who've explored the implications of coincidence in Stead's When You Reach Me (BCCB 9/09). [End Page 396]

...

pdf

Share