Pay Attention, Carter Jones

I absolutely loved this story. Schmidt has a knack for wisely, gently and beautifully dealing with the heartbreak in childhood in a hopeful, redeeming way. He reflects on the failures of adults, while not bashing adults--in every story there is someone who is that loyal, faithful, and reliable adult that serves to help the main character work through hard things in life. He artfully develops his characters--we can all relate to them in some way, and learn with and from them. His stories are entertaining--laugh out loud--while also poignant. This one captured me and kept me up later than I intended just to see it through to the satisfying, heart-warming end.

We ended up not giving this to our kids. There is sibling death, parental abandonment, etc. just not the heavy load we care to unload on our pre-teen.