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Reviewed by:
  • Violet and the Pie of Life by Debra Green
  • Elizabeth Bush
Green, Debra Violet and the Pie of Life. Holiday House,
2021 [256p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780823447558 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780823449026 $11.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 4-7

Violet and Dad always joke about the united front they present against Mom's perpetual nagging, as they sneak off-limits food and play fast and loose with activity schedules. When Dad abruptly packs up and leaves, Vi blames Mom in earnest for driving her father away. She also takes her anger out on bestie McKenzie, feeling that she is insufficiently sympathetic to Vi's family breakup. Middle school also presents Vi with two important steam valves, though: personalized assignments set by a teacher who recognizes Vi's gift for math, and the role of Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz production, where Vi finds her singing voice and makes a new friend. Of course, none of that compensates for Dad going incommunicado, and everyone close to Vi tastes her wrath until she figures out that she's not the only kid suffering domestic drama, that her mother has been struggling single-handed for years to keep the household running, and that the real child of the family is Dad, a party boy who simply fled his responsibilities. Green keeps the verbal aggressions and bitten-back words real, and although there's some orchestration to the reveal of everyone else's particular troubles, there's no florid melodrama to cheapen the [End Page 262] emotional aches and bruises. Kids who feast on friendship and family fiction will savor the bitter and the sweet.

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