Everything Else in the Universe by Tracy Holczer (review)

Lucy Rossi is one of the lucky kids, since her doctor father, drafted for Vietnam service, is coming home. However, after the flurry of welcome-home celebration with her rowdy, extended Italian family, the reality of his new life with a missing limb sets in, and Lucy, overeager to help Dad adjust to his prosthetic arm, is sidelined by her parents. Lucy is understandably angry, hurt, and confused that the father who had always treated her as his dependable pride and joy would push her away, but she finds support from Uncle G, who seems to slip in right when needed, and from a friendship with a summer visitor, Milo, who’s also expecting his soldier father home shortly. When they discover a helmet holding a Purple Heart and family photos buried next to a nearby creek, they set out to identify the items’ owner. Their research journey leads them to veterans’ organizations that variously support or deride Vietnam vets, revealing for them—and readers—the messy reality for soldiers returning stateside. The plot elements are programmatic, but Holczer assembles a cast in which even secondary characters have truly humanizing moments; the mystery of the buried mementos is satisfactorily dispatched, while a deeper secret of Milo’s is affecting. It’s hard to be maudlin in the company of the Rossi clan, and middle-schoolers will appreciate the conviviality that buoys Lucy through her difficult months.