Where Do You Stay?
-
- 44,99 zł
-
- 44,99 zł
Publisher Description
Jerome is staying with his Aunt Geneva and her family, now that his mother has passed away. Aunt Geneva does her best to make Jerome feel welcome, but it just doesn't feel like home. He misses his mother, he misses his piano, and his cousins make it clear they're not happy about the new living arrangements. Then Jerome meets Mr. Willie, who lives in a ramshackle carriage house nearby. Mr. Willie isn't like other people in Jerome's life: he doesn't ask a lot of questions; he just listens. He played the piano as a boy, just like Jerome. Maybe Jerome can find a home again with Mr. Willie. But when the carriage house is slated for demolition, Mr. Willie disappears. Jerome wonders where his friend will stay, and whether he will ever find a place to call home in this Society of School Librarians International Honor Book.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Eleven-year-old Jerome narrates his feelings of displacement and loss following his single mother's long illness and death, as well as his subsequent move into his cousins' house. In conversations that read like prose poems, he reveals his conflicted feelings toward his aunt, who plans to adopt him; the cousins who both resent and desire his presence; and his new residence, which does not feel like home because it has no piano. Painful memories of his mother's decline and the economic stressors that accompany her death confuse Jerome, while a connection with Mr. Willie, a neighborhood fixture who sleeps in a carriage house beside an empty mansion and survives by performing odd jobs, provides a grounding touchstone. By encouraging Jerome to garden and fix up abandoned buildings, Mr. Willie, also a musician, helps keep alive Jerome's hope that music will return to his life. In short chapters of lyrical prose, Cheng (Only One Year) provides a moving tribute to a multigenerational community's ability to sustain and recreate itself in times of change through resilience, hard work, and a commitment to beauty and kindness. Ages 8 12.
